THE 

ROSE-COLOURED 
ROOM 

MAUDE  LITTLE 


/> 


/o 
(: . 


/-  2 


333 


The  Rose-coloured 
Room 


The  Rose-coloured 
Room 


by 

MAUDE  LITTLE 

Author  of  "  A  Woman  on  the  Threshold  " 
"  The  Children's  Bread  " 
&c. 


New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

London  &  Toronto :  Sidgwick  &  Jackson  Ltd 
1915 


PRINTED  AT  THE  COMPLETE  PRESS 

WEST    NORWOOD 

W>NDON 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGB 

I.  THE  COMING  1 

II.  THE  IMPRISONED   PRINCESS  50 

III.  THE  BUGLES   OF  THE   CHAMPIONS  86 

IV.  THE  HEDGE   OF  THORNS  121 
V.  THE  HAPPY   WARRIOR  157 

VI.  THE  WHITE   STUDIO  227 

VII.  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM  275 


2136771 


TO 
"THE  OTHERS" 


PERSONS 

MICHAEL  QUENTIN,  a  rich  young  man. 

RACIE  MOORE,  his  friend,  a  journalist. 

MRS.  TRATHBYE,  an  Irish  widow  of  good  family. 

DRUSILLA 


ESSIE 


her  daughters. 


KATHLEEN 

Miss  CAROLINE  TRATHBYE,  her  sister-in-law. 

ALEXANDER  COWIE,  a  young  doctor. 

THOMAS  PATULLO,  a  tutor. 

GRACE  MORLAND,  a  teacher  of  gymnastics. 

MRS.  WYLIE,  Michaefs  landlady. 

A  POOR  IRISHWOMAN. 

A  LITTLE  BOY. 

COWIE'S  MOTHER  AND  SISTERS. 

Various  Members  of  the  Eire  Club,  Michael's  Servants,  etc. 

The  Scene  is  laid  at  Glasgow  and  at  Michael  Quentin'* 
country  house  on  the  Ayrshire  coast. 

The  Time  is  the  present  day. 


viii 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  COMING 

MICHAEL  QUENTIN  and  Racie  Moore  were  drinking 
coffee  in  the  garden.  The  honey-coloured  glow  of  the 
lamp,  standing  on  a  little  table,  illumined  the  forms  of 
the  two  young  men  up  to  their  collars  :  their  faces 
were  in  darkness  and  behind  them  and  above  them 
there  were  the  deeply  coloured  dim  masses  of  trees  and 
the  moonless  night  sky.  The  foliage  stirred  faintly  ; 
and  the  soft  incessant  sounds  of  the  sea  came  from  a 
distance.  Michael  and  Racie  could  see  on  their  left 
a  broken  row  of  radiant  oblong  windows  and  the  vague 
pale  form  of  the  house  itself. 

"  It's  a  beautiful  night,"  Michael  said,  speaking 
with  an  intonation  which  subtly  suggested  the  current 
of  Irish  blood. 

Racie  was  silent. 

"  It's  a  beautiful  night,"  Michael  repeated.  .  .  . 
"  Lovely."  His  voice  was  insistent. 

"  I  thought  every  night  was  beautiful  to  you," 
Racie  said  with  a  gently  mirthful  irony. 

"  Yes,"  Michael  said.  ..."  Isn't  it  a  beautiful 
night  ?  " 

Racie  swirled  towards  him  in  a  sudden  keen  in- 
quiry. 

"  Why  do  you  say  that  ?  "  In  animation  Racie's 
voice  had  the  same  fluctuations  as  Michael's,  and  his 
articulation,  like  Michael's,  was  throaty. 

"  Because  it  is  a  beautiful  night,"  Michael  said  with 
a  gurgle  of  laughter. 

"  I  wish  you  wouldn't  be  so  Maeterlinckish,"  Racie 

A 


2  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

said  ..."  and  so  insincere.  You  meant  that  the 
night  was  beautiful  in  a  quite  special  sense,  I  suppose. 
You  spoke  about  its  beauty  on  purpose — as  a  prelude 
to  something  you  are  going  to  say,  I  suppose." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I'll  say  anything,"  Michael  said. 

"  As  you  will,"  Racie  replied.  He  set  down  his 
coffee-cup  and  accepted  the  cigar  that  Michael  offered 
him.  The  match-blaze,  palpitating  hi  the  drowsily 
moving  air,  made  a  variable  blotch  of  red-gold  bright- 
ness, including  part  of  Racie's  face,  sheening  the  skin 
of  his  nose  and  lips  and  glinting  in  his  dark  eyes. 

"  I'll  tell  you,"  said  Michael.  ..."  I'll  tell  you. 
No,  thanks,  I've  given  up  smoking.  .  .  .  This  night 
seems  more  beautiful  than  any  night  I've  seen.  All 
the  world  seems  different  somehow.  Don't  be  afraid. 
I'm  not  going  to  say  something  about  the  livelier 
emerald  twinkling  in  the  grass,  or  the  purer  sapphire 
melting  into  the  sea." 

"  Well,  you  might  as  well,"  Racie  said.  "  What 
you  have  said  is  so  commonplace  .  .  .  and  what 
you've  done  is  also  frightfully  commonplace." 

"  Done  ?  "  Michael  said.  "  Done  !  "  he  repeated 
on  his  top  note,  soaring  from  inquiry  to  indignation. 
"  Who  said  I'd  done  ann'thing  ?  " 

"  How  Irish  we  are  !  "  Racie  said,  derisive  ;  and 
Michael  flushed  angrily  in  the  darkness.  "  I  think 
you  overdo  it,"  Racie  went  on.  "  You  won't  get  a 
real  Celt  to  be  quite  as  Celtic  as  you  are." 

"  I  am  a  real  Celt,"  Michael  said  solemnly.  "  My 
father  was  a  Kerryman.  My  mother  was  Scottish 
with  a  good  deal  of  Highland  blood  in  her.  We'll  not 
discuss  it,"  he  added  in  a  hurt,  haughty  tone  ;  and  a 
silence  followed.  Once  or  twice  Racie  moved  rest- 
lessly in  his  chair  and  breathed  forcibly  so  that  his  red 


THE  COMING  3 

cigar-end  started  into  brightness.  Michael,  sitting 
erect,  was  watching  three  moths  swooping  and 
skirmishing  round  the  lamp -glow. 

"  Well  ?  "  Racie  said,  with  the  faintest  touch  of 
sheepishness.  "  Well,  Mick  ?  " 

Michael's  dark  shape  relaxed. 

"  Tell  us  the  thing  you  haven't  done  ?  "  Racie 
asked,  reassuming  the  tone  in  which  he  habitually 
addressed  Michael.  It  was  a  mingling  of  toleration, 
banter,  and  impatience.  Racie's  voice,  unstimulated 
by  any  kind  of  emotion,  was  a  very  quiet  one  ;  it  kept 
on  a  few  middle  notes  and  its  monotony  suggested 
fatigue. 

"  I  haven't  fallen  in  love,"  Michael  said,  a  laugh 
intermingling  with  his  speech.  "  Sorry.  You'd  have 
liked  some  definite  copy,  I  know." 

"  Don't  be  bitter,"  Racie  said.  "  I  couldn't  make 
acceptable  copy  out  of  you  now.  The  Glasgow  Evening 
Mercury  doesn't  take  an  interest  in  you  any  longer. 
People  are  tired  of  you  and  your  queer  house  now. 
We'd  give  you  a  paragraph  if  you  died  or  married — 
that's  all.  Even  the  Woman's  Column  leaves  you 
and  your  house  alone." 

"  I'm  not  interesting  to  women,"  Michael  said 
huffily.  "  I  wish  you  wouldn't  cough  in  that  abomin- 
able way.  Papers  like  The  Mercury  do  a  lot  to  lower 
the  standards  of  womanhood  and  manhood.  The 
Woman's  Column  with  its  beastly  advice,  as  if  it  were 
the  aim  of  every  woman  to  catch  a  man.  .  .  .  You 
know  that  sort  of  thing  is  a  lie."  In  Racie's  silence 
Michael  became  aggressive.  "  It's  a  lie,"  he  repeated. 
"  A  woman  doesn't  go  about,  like  Diogenes,  looking 
for  a  man.  I've  never  seen  any  signs  of  it." 

"  You  !  "  Racie  uttered,  compunctious. 


4  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  Candidly  now,  have  you  ?  " 

"  Of  course,"  Racie  said,  and  stopped,  his  face 
slightly  warm.  He  reflected  that  Michael  had  five 
thousand  a  year  and  a  wealth  of  delusions.  A  man 
with  so  much  money  could  afford  them.  Again  and 
again  Racie  had  said  to  his  own  bitter  chafing  im- 
patience that  it  was  a  mere  waste  of  energy  to  try  to 
open  the  eyes  of  a  man  who,  stumbling  in  darkness, 
could  afford  to  pay  a  surgeon  for  attendance  to  his 
injuries.  Racie  had  taken  his  cigar  from  his  mouth  to 
utter  his  hopeless  "  Of  course  "  :  he  replaced  the  cigar, 
settled  himself  back  in  his  chair,  muttering,  as  a  sort 
of  concession  to  his  own  irritation  :  "  Oh,  I  don't 
know,  'f  course  not ;  I've  no  money." 

"  The  Mercury's  got  into  your  blood  and  brain  !  " 
Michael  said  with  a  Celtic  intensity. 

"  Quicksilver  ?  "  Racie  said.  "  Or  my  paper  ? 
That  reminds  me,  Mick,  if  you  want  to  say  anything — 
or  ann'thing  (God  bless  ould  Ireland  !) — better  say  it, 
for  I'll  have  to  catch  that  ten-ten  to  Glasgow." 

'*  I've  told  Tosh  we'll  want  the  motor,"  Michael  said, 
nodding.  "  Half-past  nine's  lots  of  time.  .  .  .  When 
I  said  things  were  changed  I  meant  it.  I  can't  tell 
you  anything,  Racie,  I  don't  know." 

"  Don't  know  ?  " 

**  I  know  nothing,"  Michael  said,  rocking  his  chair 
on  the  turf.  "  Only,  there's  a  change  coming  to  me 
.  .  .  there's  something  coming.  ...  I  don't  know 
what  it  is.  It  may  be  a  revelation  of  God.  It  may 
be  Death.  It  may  be  human  love."  And  at  the  last 
name  only  Michael's  voice  quivered,  and  Racie  was 
shaken  into  a  silence  which  was  partly  embarrassed, 
but  partly  troubled. 

In  the  deeply  coloured  mass  of  the  trees  and  shrubs, 


THE  COMING  5 

on  the  left  side  of  the  pale  uncertain  shape  of  the  house, 
something  was  purring,  as  a  tiger  might  purr  in  the 
close-knit  jungle  under  a  sky  unpierced  by  stars. 
Presently  the  eyes  of  the  brute  shone  out,  yellow  and 
ray-streaming,  and  it  came  near  and  then  went  far  off 
again  in  a  slow  curving  rush.  Racie  and  Michael  rose 
and  stood  for  a  minute,  reluctant,  in  the  little  pool  of 
brightness  and  lulling  odours  round  which  the  moths 
were  wistfully  flying. 

"  Funny  thing,"  Racie  said.  "  Funny  you  never 
need  to  do  a  thing  unless  you  like.  You  do  all  your 
mortifying  of  the  flesh  voluntarily.  I  don't  doubt 
you  think  you  do  a  lot." 

"  Rubbish,"  Michael  said.  ..."  You're  so  ob- 
stinately stupid  in  some  things.  I've  never  said  any- 
thing to  lead  you  to  suppose  that  I  believed  in  morti- 
fying the  flesh.  God  made  the  flesh  .  .  .  only  He 
made  the  soul  too.  It  must  be  easy  to  keep  your  flesh 
in  its  right  place  once  your  soul  has  seen  God." 

"  What's  its  right  place  ?  "  Racie  asked. 

"  On  its  knees,"  Michael  said,  with  that  self- 
conscious  intensity  of  his. 

Racie  had  a  swift  mental  vision  of  the  crucifix  that 
hung  in  the  white  studio  in  Michael's  house  ;  a  crucifix 
of  ivory  and  ebony,  terrible,  uncompromising,  the 
drooping,  dying  figure  white  against  the  austere  black 
of  the  cross.  And  under  the  rood,  set  on  a  white  and 
silver  table,  Michael  always  kept  roses,  crimson  and 
white :  massed  and  tumbled  as  they  were,  they 
touched  the  feet  of  the  figure  on  the  cross  and  seemed, 
fantastically,  to  blossom  from  the  red  stigmata — the 
soul's  joys  flowering  from  the  body's  anguish.  .  .  . 
Michael  Quentin  could  afford  to  have  roses  all  the  year 
round.  A  ridiculous  set  piece  altogether ;  a  thing 


6  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

that  Michael,  meaning  that  men  should  not  see,  must 
have  actually  designed  to  make  an  impression  on  God. 
"  Pour  epater  le  bon  Dieu  !  "  Racie  said  to  himself, 
humorous,  in  the  dismal  journalese  of  The  Glasgow 
Evening  Mercury.  .  .  .  Well,  no  harm  had  been  done 
by  the  costly  crucifix  with  its  singular  fashion  of 
glorifying  the  flesh  that  God  had  made.  No  harm  had 
been  done  by  the  roses,  nor  by  the  white  studio  and  the 
rest  of  the  house.  Michael  Quentin  had  five  thousand 
a  year,  and  might  have  done  more  evil  had  he  taken 
to  philanthropy  on  a  large  scale. 

They  walked  round  the  wide  curve  of  the  drive,  the 
shell  with  which  it  was  strewn  making  a  soft  crushing 
sound  under  their  feet.  In  front  of  the  house,  in  the 
dim,  vaguely  edged  wash  of  light,  the  colours  of  things 
showed  in  subdued  tones — the  dull  blue-greens  of 
shrubs  and  trees,  the  grey-green  of  grass,  the  silvery 
whiteness  of  the  broken  shell  on  the  drive,  the  warmer 
whitenesses  of  the  steps,  the  porch,  and  house-front, 
rather  recently  built  and  diapered  now  with  a  meagre 
design  of  trained  branches  and  stems.  The  motor 
was  clicking  and  purring.  Tosh,  with  his  splendid 
shoulders,  stood  by  it,  saluting  as  they  passed  into  the 
house. 

On  the  way  to  the  station,  which  stood  on  the 
Fauldstane  road,  Racie  said  : 

"  I  suppose  you  will  be  in  on  Thursday  night  to  the 
meeting  of  the  club  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  Michael  said.  "  I'll  see  you  there  ?  It's  to 
be  old  Patullo's  paper,  you  know.  I  wonder  what  sort 
of  thing  he'll  do."  There  was  a  touch  of  uneasiness  in 
Michael's  laugh — the  awkward  attempt  of  an  altruist, 
self-defensive,  to  range  himself  with  the  majority  who 
smiled  at  old  Patullo. 


THE  COMING  7 

Racie  was  sensitive  to  a  false  note  in  Michael :  he 
replied  with  a  cold  gravity  : 

"  Patullo  was  a  brilliant  man,  they  say." 

"  Who  ?  "  Michael  exclaimed,  astonished,  com- 
punctious ;  swiftly  apprehending  piteousness  in  the 
career  of  old  Patullo,  the  coach,  with  his  petunia  nose, 
his  wet  eyes,  and  tremulous  movements. 

"  They,"  Racie  said,  with  his  quick  guttural  laugh. 

The  faltering  talk  yielded  to  silence.  The  motor 
was  running  inland,  climbing  up  and  swooping  down  a 
succession  of  slopes  in  the  road  that  lay  between  the 
wide  palenesses  of  unreaped  grain-fields  and  blossomy 
meadows,  intersected  by  hedgerows  and  walls,  black  in 
the  night.  Often  they  passed  a  group  of  dark  farm- 
buildings,  inset  here  and  there  with  the  golden  oblongs 
of  lighted  windows  ;  or  a  big  cluster  of  trees,  their 
foliage  swinging  to  a  soft  "  hush-hush  "  and  yielding 
vegetable  odours  to  the  air.  The  swish  and  boom  of 
the  sea  was  fainter  and  fainter  to  their  ears ;  at  the 
turning  of  corners  the  motor-horn  twanked ;  once 
Tosh  suddenly  slowed  down  and  laughed  as  the  glare 
showed  two  brown  rabbits  in  the  road. 

Still  silent,  Michael  and  Racie  strode  along  the 
lonely  station  platform  set  in  this  country  of  fields  and 
farms.  A  mournful  little  wind  from  the  sea  was 
blowing  now,  gently  shaking  dark  shades  over  the 
lower  sky.  A  lamp-bearing  porter,  like  a  great  glow- 
worm, crossed  the  metals  ;  there  was  the  clash  of 
signals. 

"  Coming,"  Racie  said  mechanically,  in  a  town- 
dweller's  way  of  saying  things  that  none  desires  to 
hear  nor  to  speak. 

The  train  came  and  there  was  a  shouting,  a  flaring  of 
lights,  a  clapping  of  doors.  Racie,  dark-eyed  and 


8  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

white-faced,  in  his  crush  hat  and  grey  overcoat, 
leaned  from  the  window,  shaking  hands  :  the  guard 
waved  his  green  flag,  and  stepped,  with  a  railwayman's 
admirable  casualness,  on  to  the  out-going  train.  .  .  . 
Michael  was  left  on  the  platform,  in  the  indigo  dimness, 
with  the  softly  blowing  breeze,  the  sparse  golden  lights, 
the  faltering  sounds  of  the  train's  retreat,  of  its  quick, 
suddenly  checked  hoots,  suggestive  of  some  half- 
uttered  human  emotion  of  mirth  or  grief.  From  the 
country,  blurring  the  blue-blackness  of  the  June  night 
with  the  grey  rising  of  its  mists,  there  came  that 
mingling  of  noises  that  is  like  the  breath,  the  stirring 
of  a  great  creature,  lying  cool  and  mysterious  in  its 
sleep,  but  with  the  time  of  awakening  always  at  hand. 
The  purple  sky,  too,  seemed  to  thrill,  expectant. 

"  Coming,  sir  ? "  Tosh  said  with  a  humorous 
patience  with  his  employer's  oddity,  as  Michael  came 
into  the  road. 

"  Coming,"  Michael  answered,  with  delight  in  the 
chance  repetition  of  the  appropriate  word.  He  re- 
peated it  to  himself  as  the  motor  ran  homewards, 
climbing  and  dipping,  between  the  pallid  fields  and  the 
dark  hedges. 

"  Coming  .  .  .  coming  ..." 

"  Well  then,  I  wonder  what's  coming,"  Michael  said 
to  himself  with  an  enjoying  laugh,  as  his  sense  of 
humour,  like  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  went  scuttering  across 
the  stage  on  which  his  egotism  posed  and  pondered 
and  suffered. 

II 

Michael  Quentin's  house  stood  at  a  corner  where  the 
road  that  ran  inland  to  Fauldstane  made  an  acute 
angle  with  the  sea-road  :  the  house  had  consequently 


THE  COMING  9 

been  named  "  The  Corner  House."  The  same  rebel- 
lion against  the  traditions  of  villadom  as  had  led  to  the 
choice  of  the  simple  name  had  regulated  the  building 
of  the  house  itself.  It  was  a  little  house  :  set  in  its 
twenty  acres  of  greensward,  gardens,  and  woodland, 
it  was  a  white  cottage,  hardly  bigger  than  the  two 
white  lodges  at  its  western  and  northern  gates.  Two 
gardeners,  local  men,  dwelling  in  these  white  lodges, 
had,  during  the  eighteen  months  that  had  passed  since 
"  The  Corner  House  "  was  built,  disseminated  know- 
ledge of  Michael  Quentin's  eccentricities.  But  now 
the  gardeners  almost  took  him  and  his  house  for 
granted,  and  the  tradesmen's  carts  passed  in  and  out 
at  the  northern  gate  with  hardly  the  exchange  of  a  jest. 
As  Racie  had  said,  people  had  become  accustomed  to 
Michael  Quentin's  funny  house.  His  domestic  ser- 
vants, visiting  friends  in  the  neighbourhood,  were  only 
now  and  then  called  upon  to  entertain  a  stranger  with 
a  description  of  the  interior  of  the  crazy  building  ;  and 
sometimes  a  passenger,  leaning  over  the  railings  of  one 
of  the  bright-funnelled  panting  steamers  that  issued 
from  the  Firth  of  Clyde,  would  point  to  Michael's 
place  and  say  : 

"  That's  Quentin's  house.  Oh,  you  must !  The 
house  that  the  papers  made  such  fun  of  a  year  or  two 
ago  ?  " 

If  the  subject  were  pursued,  what  followed  was  in- 
coherent and  tame  ;  for  the  truth  is  that  there  was 
nothing  really  funny  about  Michael  Quentin's  house. 
It  was  less  ridiculous  than  thousands  of  houses  which 
are  seriously  built  and  bought  and  sold.  It  was  by 
dint  of  mere  repetition  that  the  western  papers  had 
persuaded  the  public  to  accept  the  house  as  a  joke. 
It  must  have  been  a  disappointment  to  those  who  went 


10  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

to  see  it  in  the  expectation  of  being  amused  :  for  it 
was  merely  an  innocent-looking  white  cottage,  with  a 
door  and  seven  windows  at  the  front.  A  thin  pattern 
of  rambler-rose  blooms  and  branches  was  trailed 
between  the  casements,  austerely  decorative  as  in  a 
Watts  picture.  Three  broad  steps  led  up  to  the  door 
and  there  was  a  simple  porch  ;  and  the  door  and  porch, 
like  the  house  walls,  were  very  white.  The  cottage 
had  two  stories  and  the  upper  one  was  entirely  oc- 
cupied by  the  studio,  the  glass  roof  of  which  blazed  in 
the  sunshine,  or  shimmered  bluely  through  rains  and 
dimnesses. 

This  studio  in  itself  was  locally  accepted  as  a  sign 
that  Michael  Quentin  was  "  not  quite  all  there."  In 
the  first  place,  a  man  who  neither  photographed  nor 
painted  did  not  need  a  studio,  did  he  ?  But  the  sin- 
gularity of  possessing  a  studio  was  lost  sight  of  in  the 
amazing  eccentricity  of  keeping  the  place  locked,  of 
cleaning  it  himself,  and  of  bringing  fresh  roses  into  it 
every  day.  There  were  some  who  said  that  Michael 
Quentin  had  had  an  unhappy  love-affair,  which  had 
somewhat  unhinged  his  mind  ;  and  that  the  white 
studio  was  a  kind  of  offering  to  the  dead  or  lost 
"  young  lady."  But  others,  finding  it  improbable 
that  "  he  "  would  look  at  a  woman,  believed  that  the 
studio  was  the  temple  of  some  weird  religion  which 
was  styled  "  Theosaphy." 

The  painters  who  had  come  down  from  the  city  to 
decorate  the  house  had,  before  leaving,  made  it  public 
that  the  studio  was  as  white  as  snow  from  floor  to 
ceiling,  and  that  each  of  the  seven  rooms  on  the  ground 
floor  was  done  up  in  a  different  colour  ;  and  these 
statements  were  confirmed  by  Michael's  indoor  ser- 
vants, Helen  the  housemaid,  Muriel  the  parlourmaid, 


THE  COMING  11 

and  Mattie  the  housekeeper  and  cook.  As  a  local 
woman,  Mattie  gave  the  feeling  of  the  neighbourhood 
pretty  accurately  when  she  said  that  there  was  no 
harm  in  the  seven  colours  on  the  ground  floor,  but 
that  a  snow-white  studio  was  going  too  far. 

Another  freak  of  the  architect — goaded  by  Michael 
Quentin — was  this  :  there  was  no  hall.  You  stepped 
at  once  from  the  white  porch,  with  its  meagre  twistings 
of  rambler-rose  trails,  into  the  central  room,  the  largest 
of  the  seven.  It  was  green  :  a  white  staircase  mounted 
from  it  to  the  studio.  Each  of  the  seven  rooms  ex- 
tended from  the  front  of  the  house  to  the  back,  and 
each  had  a  back  door  of  its  own.  Mattie  gave  her 
word  to  any  one  to  whom  she  was  speaking  that  she 
never  knew  who  was  in  the  house.  How  could  she 
know  ?  She  admitted  that  the  place  was  not  draughty 
— which,  she  said,  was  a  miracle — and  that  the  doors 
and  windows  were  well  secured.  The  pity  was  that 
there  were  so  many  of  them  !  Interiorly,  each  room 
gave  on  the  next,  the  green  room  in  the  centre  of 
necessity  giving  on  two,  the  one  yellow,  the  other  blue. 
The  rest  of  the  primary  colours  were  represented  in 
the  orange  room,  opening  off  the  yellow,  and  the 
indigo  room,  opening  off  the  blue  ;  while  at  the  ends 
of  the  house  were  a  violet  guest-chamber  and  a  red 
kitchen  and  accessories.  Every  room  had  a  deep 
white  frieze,  and  the  dominant  colour  was  additionally 
tempered  by  notes  leading  to  and  from  the  hue  that 
prevailed  in  the  neighbouring  chamber.  Thus,  there 
were  green  jars  in  the  yellow  room  and  a  deep  orange 
curtain  hung  over  its  door  giving  on  the  orange  room  ; 
while  the  orange  room — the  dining-room — with  its 
large  admixture  of  white,  had  spots  and  sparks  of 
luminous  reds  reminiscent  of  the  warm  walls  of  the 


12  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

kitchen  glowing  beyond.  It  had  been  Michael's  in- 
tention to  offer  this  beautiful  orange  room  to  his 
servants  as  a  sitting-room — (for  in  the  night  they  slept 
at  the  larger  lodge  with  the  head  gardener  and  his 
wife,  a  childless  couple) — but  the  women  had  declined, 
Muriel  and  Helen  smilingly,  Mattie  hotly.  Sit  in  a 
room  of  that  colour  ?  She  did  not  want  to  get  "  the 
bile  "  as  she  remembered  her  mother  once  doing  when 
she  sewed  a  yellow  table-centre  for  a  sale  of  work.  It 
added  to  Mattie's  contempt,  and  to  the  languid  amuse- 
ment of  the  local  people  generally,  that  Michael 
Quentin  should  alternate  his  passions  for  complete 
solitude  with  fits  of  undignified  loquacity  in  which  he 
would  wander  or  sit  up  half  the  night  with  his  friends 
from  town,  or  would  walk  and  talk  with  any  sort  of 
tramp  or  lost  creature  on  the  roads.  "  You  never 
know  what  he'll  do  next,"  Mattie  said  to  the  trades- 
men at  the  door  of  the  red-and-white  kitchen. 

Unconsciously,  with  the  sure  voice  of  the  simple, 
she  struck  the  key-note  of  Michael's  life.  He  himself 
never  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do  next. 

Michael's  father  had  been  a  publican  ;  an  Irishman 
of  the  lower  middle  class,  a  Catholic,  frugal,  devout, 
humble,  industrious.  He  had  toiled  up  from  a  little 
clerking  job  in  a  restaurant  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
through  a  travellership  for  a  wine-merchant,  to  the 
possession  of  a  public-house — of  two  public-houses — 
of  five — of  half  a  score.  At  a  hydropathic  he  had  met 
the  Storringtons  ;  and  had  finally  married  Elsa  Stor- 
rington,  a  middle-class  girl,  eager,  iron-willed,  full  of 
sex  feeling,  full  of  ambition ;  not  pretty  nor  clever, 
but  with  a  cruel,  haughty  self-exaltation  that  secured 
to  her  most  of  the  privileges  of  beauty  and  brilliance. 
She  had  dominated  her  husband,  and  vampirishly 


THE  COMING  18 

absorbed  all  that  he  offered  her,  always  with  that 
terrible  air  of  a  woman  assured  of  her  right  to  take. 
She  mesmerised  him  into  believing  that  she  was,  or  had 
been,  a  beauty,  and  mesmerised  him  and  many  others 
into  a  faith  in  her  connection  with  some  noble  English 
family — not  any  particular  noble  English  family. 
Quentin  deferred  to  her  on  all  points  of  social  conduct, 
listening  patiently  to  her  "  tips  "  garnered  from  eti- 
quette books  and  to  her  aggressively  voiced  wonder  at 
his  ignorance  of  observances,  the  existence  of  which 
she  herself  had  learned  a  few  hours  before  from  the 
current  number  of  the  Woman's  Friend  or  the  Social 
Guide.  .  .  .  Michael  was  his  mother's  only  child  and 
the  victim  of  all  her  caprices,  ignorances,  and  passions. 
His  father's  domestic  life  was  only  a  constant  abdica- 
tion of  rights  ;  and  the  State,  which  came  between  the 
little  ragamuffin  and  the  parents  who  wanted  too  often 
to  kick  him,  did  not  feel  authorised  to  subject  to 
inquiry  a  home  as  brilliantly  prosperous  and  respect- 
able as  the  Quentins.  Mrs.  Quentin  experimented  on 
Michael  and  no  one  asked  her  to  show  a  licence.  She 
began  to  give  the  child  reading  lessons  when  he  was 
two  and  a  half;  when  he  was  three  she  delighted 
herself  with  giving  him  piano  lessons,  scolding  savagely 
when  he  wept,  laughing  sentimentally  at  the  sight  of 
his  doughy  little  hands  trying  to  stretch  over  the  keys. 
When  he  was  five  she  engaged  a  professional,  an  in- 
ferior musician  to  whom  she  had  taken  a  fancy,  to 
teach  the  unmusical  Michael  the  violin.  The  futility 
continued  to  absorb  his  energy  for  the  next  three  or 
four  years  when,  tired  of  it,  she  buried  it  in  the  mass 
of  other  subjects  that  she  desired  her  son  to  learn. 
Michael  was  plunged  into  the  study  of  five  foreign 
languages,  of  which  in  maturity  he  retained  only  a  few 


14  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

fragments  of  vocabulary,  a  few  oaths,  a  few  lines  of 
verse,  and  a  confused  remembrance  of  vivid  pictures, 
huge  compositions  in  which  wild  pigs  ate  acorns  in 
forests,  peasants  reaped  fields,  tourists  climbed  hills, 
and  mail-coaches,  preceded  by  barking  dogs,  chased 
motors  through  villages  full  of  market-women,  soldiers, 
sailors,  and  firemen.  Michael  sampled  many  expensive 
schools,  in  Scotland  and  in  England.  His  mother 
seldom  allowed  him  to  stay  in  a  school  for  more  than  a 
year  :  for  she  either  quarrelled  with  one  of  his  masters 
or  was  disappointed  because  the  family  of  one  of  his 
schoolfellows  had  not  encouraged  a  friendship.  .  .  . 
When  Michael  was  seventeen,  he  was  called  home  from 
his  last  English  school  by  the  death  of  his  father  :  his 
mother,  after  some  vaguely  motived  dwellings  in 
various  towns,  went  to  Oxford.  Here  Michael  put  in 
two  terms  at  the  University  ;  then  his  mother,  taking 
a  dislike  to  a  colleague  of  his,  took  her  son  to  Germany. 
She  died  at  Bonn,  leaving  Michael,  aged  twenty-two, 
snatched  out  of  a  cloud  of  studies,  dazed,  ignorant, 
uncouth,  friendless. 

Emerging  slowly  from  the  confusion  of  feelings 
caused  by  his  mother's  death,  and  the  intellectual  con- 
fusion of  law  business,  Michael  realised  that  he  was 
rich  and  in  a  sense  at  liberty.  His  mother — who  had 
had  absolute  control  of  the  family  finances — had  left  a 
few  legacies  to  societies  and  individuals,  chiefly  ser- 
vants, but  had  made  her  son  the  heir  of  the  bulk  of 
her  wealth,  on  the  condition  that  he  did  not  go  to  live 
in  Ireland,  but  kept  and  built  on  the  twenty  acres  of 
land  which  she  had  recently  bought  in  North  Ayrshire, 
her  native  place.  Her  last  earthly  ambition  had  been 
to  build  a  country  house  with  an  avenue,  a  garage, 
and  a  tennis-court ;  and,  as  her  death  had  drawn 


THE  COMING  15 

nearer,  she  had  been  obsessed  by  visions  of  rose-alleys 
and  lawns,  and  of  herself,  surrounded  by  gold  tea- 
services,  sandwiches,  and  strawberries,  playing  hostess 
to  a  crowd  of  well-dressed  people ;  to  the  cruel 
reluctant  crowd  of  her  long  lonely  imaginings — the 
elusive  crowd  of  refined  friends  that  had  always  melted 
away  at  her  eager  approach. 

She  had  divined  in  her  son  the  growth  of  the  defiance 
that  she  aroused  in  all  with  whom  she  came  into 
intimate  contact.     In  their  rushings  to  and  fro,  their 
social  flounderings  and  helpless  graspings  at  culture, 
Michael's  reverence  for  his  mother  had  been  fretted 
away.     He  no  longer  subscribed  to  the  dogmas  of  her 
beauty  and  good  breeding  :  he  saw  her  every  day  more 
surely  as  a  stupid  elderly  woman,  a  trivial  bully,  with 
a  face  ignobly  lined.     Her  dress  appeared  to  him  un- 
becoming :  her  self-styled  English  accent,  in  which  he 
had  gloried  in  his  childhood,  was  only  the  Scottish 
variation  of  English  spoken  more  loudly  than  was 
usual.     Her  shame  of  his  father's  nationality,  rela- 
tions, and  trade,  became  a  thing  for  blushes  :  as  were 
her  uneasiness  in  society,  her  dreads  for  him,  her  fur- 
tive searchings  in  dictionaries  and  society  papers,  her 
scrambling  efforts  to  be  the  first  to  dissolve  an  ac- 
quaintanceship, to  utter  a  jeer  or  formulate  a  criticism. 
He  was  revolted  by  her  vindictiveness  towards  those 
who  had  ignored  or  satirised  her ;    and  her  religious 
observances,  always  in  churches  socially  important, 
jarred  on  him.     He  could  not  believe  in  their  sin- 
cerity ;  and  he  was  exasperated  by  her  Sunday  figure, 
by  the  smugness  of  her  kid  gloves,  by  her  drooped 
eyelids  and  the  folds  that  came  in  her  chin  as  she 
ostentatiously  bowed  and  knelt.     Late  in  her  life,  she 
became  an  Episcopalian ;    attracted  by  a  handsome 


16  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

curate,  fancying  a  touch  of  piquancy  in  this  less 
popular  form  of  worship ;  observing  holy-days, 
scurrying,  fussy  and  cross,  to  early  Communion  on 
Easter  morning,  or,  fur-swathed,  driving  to  Christmas 
Eve  carol-singings.  She  affected  to  know  nothing  of 
the  habits  of  the  Presbyterian  sects,  asking  skittishly 
if  all  Scottish  churches  were  not  much  the  same. 
Michael  could  not  have  told  what  their  differences 
were  :  but  he  was  chilled  by  his  mother's  religion  of 
social  expediency,  by  her  showy  genuflexions,  by  her 
bazaar  committees,  subscriptions,  and  squabbles.  .  .  . 
His  love  turned  to  the  image  of  his  father,  a  formerly 
uncomprehended  being,  now  radiant  with  the  virtues 
that  this  woman  lacked.  Michael's  heart  grew  more 
resentful  of  his  mother's  shame — of  her  animus  against 
Ireland,  against  Romanists,  even  against  "  the  trade." 
In  his  childhood  he  had  laughed  at  her  caricatures  of 
his  father's  speech  and  manners  ;  a  little  later  he  had 
winced  ;  then  he  had  writhed  and  flushed.  From 
seeming  pitiable,  his  father's  figure  had  become  toler- 
able, then  venerable.  Michael  began,  surreptitiously, 
to  read  Irish  literature,  he  began  to  study  Erse.  He 
paid  secret  visits  to  the  theatres  in  which  the  Abbey 
Theatre  Company  played  on  their  visits  to  Scotland  : 
he  went  into  chapels  and  sat  dreaming  through  un- 
comprehended beautiful  masses  :  he  crossed  to  Ireland 
and  contemplated  a  long  visit,  a  final  residence.  It 
was  as  if  he  were  called  by  something  that  was  further 
back,  yet  more  familiar,  than  the  neglected  figure  of 
his  father. 

Mrs.  Quentin  was  in  truth  a  stupid,  elderly  woman  : 
but  her  motherly  feeling,  the  jealous  sense  that  her  son 
was  her  possession,  made  her  aware  of  the  graduai 
decay  of  Michael's  filial  loyalty.  Before  her  death  she 


THE  COMING  17 

was  even  a  little  conscious  that  he  was  ashamed  of  her. 
She  was  tortured  by  a  jealousy  of  her  husband's 
humble  figure  with  his  lowly  virtues — his  charity,  his 
humility,  and  industry,  his  exquisite  bodily  asceticism, 
his  devoutness  which  recked  not  of  kid  gloves  and 
bazaar  committees.  She  feared  him,  so  long  after  his 
death,  and,  enraged,  she  struggled  against  that 
triumphant  humbleness.  The  condition  which  her 
will  imposed  on  her  son  was  the  last  effort  of  her 
material  force  against  the  psychic  forces  of  her  hus- 
band and  his  nation.  She  hoped  that,  in  chaining 
Michael's  body  to  these  acres  on  the  Ayrshire  coast, 
she  might  prevent  his  spirit  from  wandering  ;  she  had 
worded  her  will  so  that,  read  in  the  emotional  atmo- 
sphere which  hangs  about  a  house  where  a  death  has 
happened,  it  might  appeal  to  Michael's  heart  rather 
than  to  his  common-sense  ;  for  the  poor  woman  was 
beginning  to  surmise  that  Michael's  common-sense 
was  not  a  thing  on  which  one  could  count. 

In  fearing  that  he  might  be  carried  away  by  feeling 
to  the  renouncement  of  his  fortune,  she  may  have  done 
Michael  an  injustice  ;  for  he  was  fond  of  money,  as 
romantic  people  usually  are  ;  and  he  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  meagre  allowances,  arbitrarily  bestowed  and 
withdrawn,  so  the  prospect  of  handling  and  spending 
at  his  pleasure  was  fresh  and  alluring.  Yet  it  was 
merely  natural  that  his  dominant  motive  in  acquies- 
cing in  the  conditions  of  the  will  should  be  a  mingling 
of  feelings  that  passed  for  filial  love — pity  for  his 
mother's  desperate  failing  grip  on  his  life,  regret  that 
he  was  not  really  sorry  that  she  was  dead,  emotions  of 
early  admiration  and  faith  galvanised  into  life  by 
memory.  He  accepted  the  twenty  acres  and — still  in 
obedience  to  the  will — began  to  consider  the  building 

B 


18  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

of  a  house  :  but  Mrs.  Quentin  had  stipulated  nothing 
about  the  time  of  erection,  and  Michael  let  two  years 
wander  by  before  he  began  to  build. 

His  mother's  death  had  not  brought  him  complete 
enfranchisement.  He  must  still  be  in  a  measure  what 
she  had  made  him — not  at  all  what  she  had  desired  to 
make  him,  but  the  result  of  the  struggle  between  her 
vague  violent  wishes  and  the  other  forces  within  and 
outside  of  himself.  His  mother's  grip  on  his  life, 
feeble  and  frantic  with  the  fear  of  losing  hold,  had  still 
been  potent  to  retard,  to  make  his  progress  timid  and 
uncertain  ;  and,  after  her  death,  Michael  found  it 
difficult  to  realise  that  he  was  unburdened  and  free. 
He  still  must  move  fearfully  and  confusedly  for  a  time  : 
but  gradually  there  grew  on  him  a  sense  of  the  splen- 
dour of  the  many  high  roads  and  by-ways  of  life.  He 
was  free  to  rush  along  any  he  chose  !  But  this  very 
consciousness  of  their  wonder  and  of  how  much  time 
he  had  wasted  inert,  having  no  knowledge  of  them, 
increased  his  aimlessness.  He  wanted  to  do  so  much 
that  he  did  not  know  where  to  begin ;  and  the  old 
timidity,  the  gawky  self-distrust  which  was  the  result 
of  his  mother's  atmosphere  of  competition,  made  it 
difficult  for  him  to  do  anything  at  all. 

He  visited  Ireland  in  the  company  of  Racie  Moore, 
whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  at  a  Socialist  meeting 
in  Glasgow.  Mrs.  Quentin's  will  did  not  forbid  visits 
to  Ireland  ;  and  after  the  silent  Racie,  with  his  air  of  a 
faint  surprise,  had  gone  back  to  The  Glasgow  Evening 
Mercury,  Michael  remained  for  some  months  in  the 
west,  seeking  the  things  that  he  had  read  and  dreamed, 
and — such  is  the  power  of  faith — finding  some  of  them. 
He  came  back  to  Scotland  with  an  extended  Irish 
vocabulary  and  with  an  affected  increase  of  the  vocal 


THE  COMING  19 

rise-and-fall  that  he  had  inherited  from  his  father.  In 
Glasgow  he  became  a  member  of  a  small  eclectic 
Socialist  society ;  but  it  turned  on  him  because,  in 
conformity  to  his  mother's  example,  he  supposed  that 
influence  could  be  acquired  by  offering  to  pay  for 
things.  He  joined  a  literary  society  in  which  he  made 
no  friends  and  not  even  enemies.  Then  he  entered 
Glasgow  University,  where,  during  two  sessions,  he 
intensely  studied  science.  The  subject  of  colour  had 
always  interested  him  :  now  for  a  time  it  enthralled 
him.  He  thought  of  making  a  book,  in  which  he 
should  consider  colour  chemically,  aesthetically,  and 
ethically  ;  and  it  was  with  a  mingling  of  disappoint- 
ment and  timid  relief  that  he  discovered  that  people 
had  already  published  books  on  the  subject.  He  con- 
tinued to  experiment  in  the  effects  of  colours  on  his 
own  character,  and  to  dream  of  a  world  regenerated 
by  the  wise  distribution  of  the  hues  of  the  rainbow. 
He  had  his  rooms  repeatedly  painted  in  different 
colours  ;  then,  with  a  keen  joy,  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
building  a  house  which  should  be  coloured  to  minister 
to  his  various  emotional  needs  and  to  assist  his  in- 
tellectual and  moral  development.  The  twenty  acres 
in  North  Ayrshire  and  the  conditions  of  his  mother's 
will  ceased  to  be  a  wrong.  Michael  fastened  on  the 
subject  of  architecture,  came  and  went  excitedly  with 
young  Rollo,  the  architect  whom  Racie  had  intro- 
duced to  him. 

It  was  not  till  the  plan  of  the  seven  coloured  rooms 
was  developed  that  Michael  haltingly  spoke  of  the 
white  studio.  He  had  felt  afraid  that  Rollo  would 
laugh  ;  and  it  was  with  a  delighted  amazement  that 
he  found  that  Rollo  was  touched  and  impressed. 
Rollo  told  Michael  that  he  himself  had  for  long  been  a 


20  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

student  of  the  ethical  significance  of  colour ;  and  he 
grasped  with  a  wonderful  sympathetic  readiness  at 
Slichael's  furtive  ideas.  They  spoke  shyly  of  purity 
and  of  the  aids  afforded  by  religions  ;  and  Michael  ex- 
plained that  he  was  not  a  Roman  Catholic,  that  his 
sense  of  humour,  or  his  modern  complexity,  stood  in 
the  way  ;  but  that  the  beautiful  religion  of  his  father's 
people  had  a  stronghold  somewhere  in  his  heart,  that 
he  was  building  up  for  himself  a  faith  which  accepted 
much  of  the  mysticism  of  the  Roman  Church  while 
rejecting  what  was  gross  or  inhuman. 

Rollo  nodded  ;  agreeing  that  agnosticism  was  an 
old-fashioned  thing  and  rotten.  A  man  needed  to 
search  for  God  :  it  was — the  language  of  Michael  and 
Rollo  almost  stated — fine  fun  to  search  for  God.  An 
adventure  !  Rollo  was  eager  about  Michael's  idea  of 
studying  and  praying  hi  a  white  studio.  But  when  the 
house  was  finished  and  he  was  permitted  to  enter  the 
decorated  snowy  room,  he  pointed  to  the  crimson 
roses  below  the  crucifix. 

"  Well  .  .  ."  Michael  said,  "  it's  the  most  beautiful 
kind.  .  .  .  The  stigmata  are  red  if  you  come  to  that. 
It's  the  colour  that  means  love." 

When  they  were  leaving  the  house,  Rollo  gazed  like 
one  seeing  visions  and  asked  : 

"  Why  don't  you  have  a  rose-coloured  room  ?  You 
could  have  it  added." 

"  I  don't  want  it,"  Michael  said  in  an  angry  surprise. 

Rollo  apologised.  .  .  .  He  was  known  to  be  con- 
sumptive as  well  as  slightly  crazy ;  and  he  died 
shortly  afterwards.  It  was  just  Michael  Quentin's 
luck,  for  he  had  felt  that  he  and  Rollo  were  going  to 
understand  each  other  always. 

Racie    Moore  .  .  .  was    different.     Yet    he    and 


THE  COMING  21 

Michael  went  to  and  fro  together.     If  Michael  wanted 
Racie  he  always  found  him  :  if  he  called  to  him  Racie 
always  came.     The  thought  had  come  to  Michael  that, 
though  he  might  never  use  his  wealth  for  the  liberation 
of  Ireland,  as  he  had  long  ago  dreamed  of  doing,  he 
might  still  find  a  patriotic  labour.     Glasgow  was  full 
of  poor  Irish,  distressed,  toiling,  drunken,  criminal. 
Michael  had  seen  glimpses  of  their  lives  when  he  was 
going  about  with  Racie,  who  was  writing  special  slum- 
ming articles  for  The  Weekly  Mercury.    And  there  were 
other  Irish  aliens,  not  distressed  nor  drunken,  whom 
he  might  be  the  means  of  bringing  together.  Suddenly, 
as  was  his  way,  he  dreamed  of  a  return,  like  the  fabled 
return  of  the  Jews  to  Zion.     A  return  of  all  Ireland 
to  the  pure  faith  of  the  old  saints,  then  a  return  of  all 
the  world,  led  back — by  Ireland  ! — to  God.     In  that 
humble  island  there  sprang  and  blossomed  the  virtues 
that  the   proud  world   forgot — simplicity,   chastity, 
poverty,   gentleness,   the   endurance   of  scorn.     His 
father,  from  being  a  round-shouldered  man  with  an 
extensive  knowledge  of  whiskies,  had  been  glorified 
into  an  epitome  of  all  those  virtues,  the  symbol  of  the 
glorious  Ireland  to  come,  with  her  poetry  and  drama, 
her  humane  and  rational  rule,   her  free  and  great 
Church  with  tolerance  for  every  doubt  and  reverence 
for  every  rule.     Michael,   on  his   knees  before  the 
crucifix,  vowed  that  he  would  keep  his  life  pure  for 
Ireland's   service ;     that   his   friendships   should   be 
staunch  and  sane  ;   that  if  human  love  came  into  his 
life  it  should  be  holy  in  its  beauty  and  joy,  as  those 
roses  at  the  foot  of  the  cross.  .  .  . 
He  founded  the  Eire  Club. 


22  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

in 

Michael  came  in  out  of  the  warm  moistness  of  the 
night,  and,  with  a  gesture  to  the  hoistman,  ran  upstairs. 
On  the  topmost  landing  an  open  door  showed  about  a 
score  of  persons  assembled  in  a  room  where  there  were 
gas-lights  and  benches  and  a  green  wooden  table  with 
a  carafe  and  glass  upon  it. 

On  the  last  page  of  the  green  syllabus  of  the  Eire 
Club,  under  the  title  "  Objects  of  the  Club,"  there  were 
printed  two  items : 

"  To  form  a  fraternity  of  Celtic  men  and  women, 
resident  in  Glasgow,  regardless  of  social  distinctions, 
or  differences  in  religion  and  politics. 

"  To  study  Celtic  literature,  especially  the  poetry 
and  myths  of  ancient  Ireland." 

Starting  the  club,  Michael  had  wished  to  bear  all  the 
expenses  himself,  making  subscriptions  optional ;  but 
Racie  Moore  had  represented  to  him,  with  so  fair  a 
show  of  reason,  the  degrading  effects  of  such  a  policy, 
that  Michael  had  yielded  to  the  suggestion  of  a  tax  of 
two  shillings  on  each  member. 

"  You  won't  get  the  right  sort  of  people  without  a 
subscription,"  Racie  said.  "  The  right  sort  of  people 
like  paying  for  things  even  when  they  can't." 

"  You're  a  fearful  lunatic,"  Michael  said  with  a 
laugh  ;  but,  on  Racie's  declaration  of  seriousness,  had 
assented  with  the  puzzled  air  that  implies  doubts  in 
reserve.  .  .  .  Michael  had  inserted  notices  in  the 
prominent  Glasgow  papers,  summoning  "  those  in- 
terested "  to  his  help  in  forming  the  club  :  he  had 
wished  to  advertise  for  "  men  and  women  of  Irish 
blood,"  but  Racie  had  said  : 

"  Better  not  be  too  particular  about  the  blood. 


THE  COMING  28 

Take  any  one  that  comes — then  you'll  have  a  chance 
of  getting  hold  of  the  right  sort  of  people." 

This  was  the  sixth  time  that  the  club  had  met — 
leaving  out  of  count  the  preliminary  business  meeting. 
Michael,  who  was  chairman,  sat  down  in  his  place  at 
the  green  table,  and,  gazing  at  the  people  in  the 
benches,  tried  to  keep  himself  from  realising  his  failure. 
The  right  sort  of  people  ?  .  .  .  He  had  visualised  a 
little  ring  of  poetry  lovers,  of  fellow-countrymen  and 
patriots,  without  hate  ;  the  poor  and  the  well-to-do 
united  by  a  common  passion  and  faith. 

Now  he  sat  in  his  place  at  the  green  table  and  gazed 
at  the  people  in  the  benches.  The  right  sort  of  people  ? 
.  .  .  Were  these  people  really  interested  in  Celtic 
literature  ?  In  literature  of  any  sort  ?  In  anything  ? 
.  .  .  Oh,  stodge  !  Suddenly  brave,  with  a  scornful 
courage  created  by  impatience,  Michael  tore  away  the 
self-pitying  illusion  that  there  was  in  the  present  mem- 
bership of  the  Eire  Club  any  germ  which  could  develop 
into  the  Eire  Club  of  his  dreams.  It  was  grotesque, 
but  it  was  true,  that  those  people  had  not  the  dimmest 
conception  of  his  thought  in  founding  the  club.  At 
his  first  interview  with  "  those  interested  "  who  had 
responded  to  his  advertisement,  he  had  felt  this  want 
of  comprehension,  but  had  stubbornly  struggled 
against  it,  persuading  himself  that  out  of  the  ruck,  with 
their  blank  eyes  and  irrelevant  talk,  the  right  sort  of 
people  were  bound  to  emerge.  He  had  made  a  speech 
on  that  first  night  and  had  felt,  such  was  the  glow  in 
his  heart,  that  they  must  come  to  understand  each 
other.  He  remembered  the  awkward  ashamed  looks 
and  coughs,  the  relief  with  which  they  had  started  to 
go  home.  .  .  .  Oh,  stodge  !  They  had  not  under- 
stood. 


24  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Michael  felt  that  Racie  Moore  was  glancing  at  him. 
As  secretary,  Racie  sat  on  Michael's  left ;  a  pale  young 
man  with  thick  dark  hah1.  His  long-lashed,  full-lidded 
eyes  were  usually  downcast ;  and  looking  at  his  profile 
as  he  sat  at  the  table,  Michael's  thoughts  often  wan- 
dered to  those  mysterious  side-faces  in  Egyptian 
drawings.  Racie's  air  was  not  so  much  that  of  one 
who  has  become  tired  of  life  as  of  one  who  believes  that 
getting  tired  is  not  worth  while.  Now  he  just  glanced 
up  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye. 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,"  Michael  said,  rising,  "  Mr. 
Patullo  is  going  to  read  a  paper  to  us  to-night." 
He  looked  down  at  old  Thomas  Patullo,  the  treasurer, 
who  sat  on  his  right.  "  I'm  sure  we'll  all  have  great 
pleasure  in  listening  to  Mr.  Patullo,"  Michael  said  with 
a  nervous  shake  of  his  head,  and  speaking  without  veri- 
similitude. "  His  paper's  about  our  national  poet, 
O'Reilly.  Uh  !  .  .  .  Mr.  Patullo,  as  I  dare  say  many 
of  you  know,  is  the  son  of  an  Irish  mother  and  a 
Scottish  father.  My  own  mother  was  Scottish  and  my 
father  Irish.  But  I  have  always  felt,  as  I  said  on  the 
night  of  our  first  meeting,  that  the  Irish  half  of  me  is 
somehow  stronger,  more  alive,  more  real " 

"  The  better  half,"  old  Patullo  put  in,  and  there  was 
a  stodgy  laugh. 

At  the  interruption,  Michael's  mind  swerved.  He 
stammered,  for  he  had  a  slight  impediment  which  had 
been  neglected  in  his  childhood,  owing  to  his  mother's 
quarrels  with  the  doctors  ;  and  it  beset  him  when  he 
was  nervous. 

"  Uh — uh — I  said  then  and  I  say  it  again,"  Michael 
went  on,  "  we  don't  want  to  remember  we're  Irish  for 
any  political  reasons " 

"  Hear,  hear  !  "  came  from  a  man  on  the  back  seat. 


THE   COMING  25 

Several  persons  turned  and  stared  unpleasantly  at 
him. 

"  Uh  ! — any  political  reasons,"  Michael  said.  "  What 
our  Irish  club — I  should  say  our  Celtic  club — has  got 
to  do  is  not  to  look  back  for  the  wrongs  and  miseries  of 
the  past,  but  for  the  things  in  the  past  that  are  glorious 
and  beautiful  and  eternal ;  and  to  look  forward,  too, 
into  the  future,  and  see  how  these  eternities  join  the 
past  and  the  future  into  one.  It  isn't  just  for  Ire- 
land's own  sake  we're  to  do  this.  Our  effort  to  keep 
up  the  feeling  of  our  nationality  isn't  the  narrow  thing 
it  seems.  It  has  a  wider  significance — a  great,  eternal 
meaning.  You  remember  long  ago  it  was  to  Ireland 
that  the  saints  and  mystics  came  with  the  beliefs  that 
were  to  change  the  Western  world.  Can  something  of 
the  same  kind  not  happen  over  again  to-day  ?  Are 
there  not  signs  of  it  ?  I  mean — it's  like  this.  Some 
people  fear  that  the  world's  faith — its  power  of  believ- 
ing in  God — is  about  played  out.  If  that  were  so,  all 
the  poetry  would  be  gone  out  of  the  world,  for  men 

can't  make  poetry  without  gods "     The  glow  came 

back  to  Michael's  heart,  it  seemed  again  possible  that 
he  should  make  these  people  understand  him. — "  Are 
there  not  signs  in  the  Ireland  of  to-day  of  a  bright 
future — of  a  new  race  of  men — of  the  coming  back  of 
our  undeveloped  past  ?  The  gods  are  getting  into 
communication  with  men  again — the  great  God  with 
His  legions  of  angels  and  saints,  who  are  the  lesser  gods. 
You  may  hope  that  the  thing  will  be  done  by  religion  ; 
or  by  art ;  they  are  only  different  forms  of  the  same 
thing — our  struggle  upwards  to  God,  His  struggle 
downwards  to  us  ;  our  eternal  need  to  get  to  God, 
and  His  eternal  need  to  get  to  us.  ... " 

"  It's  mysticism  he's  talking  now,"  a  red-faced, 


26  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

glistening-eyed  woman,  stout  and  stooping,  whispered 
to  her  neighbour.     "  Mysticism." 

"  Ang  ?  "  the  other  uttered,  bending  towards  her  ; 
inquisitive,  lean,  in  dejected  blacks  and  a  sable  necklet 
reeking  of  camphor  tar. 

"  Mysticism.  .  .  .  He's  talking  mystic  doctrines- 
allegories." 

The  woman  in  black  nodded  rapidly  several  times, 
shaking  the  fold  of  skin  under  her  chin. 

"  He's  a  son  of  Quentin  the  publican,"  she  said. 
The  gross  red-faced  woman's  face  was  suddenly  vivi- 
fied ;  the  two  looked  at  each  other  with  understand- 
ing :  they  met  on  the  common  ground  of  physical 
gossip,  and  the  red-faced  woman,  relieved,  turned 
from  the  attempt  to  follow  Michael's  speech. 

"  You  know  yon  big  public-house  at  the  corner  of 
Mertoun  and  Buglass  streets  ?  "  the  black-dressed 
woman  whispered  bustlingly.  "  Yes — yes,"  she 
nodded,  and  the  fold  of  discoloured  skin  hung  more 
slackly  for  a  moment.  "  It's  funny  to  see  the  son 
coming  out  in  this  line.  He  was  at  the  College  here 
with  my  nephew." 

"  Indeed  ?  "  the  red-faced  woman  said  cordially  ; 
breathing  asthmatically,  sitting  hunched  up  in  her 
yellow  coat  and  a  toque  of  pheasant  skins,  bald  here 
and  there. 

"  He  wasn't  considered  at  all  clever  either,"  the 
black-dressed  woman  said  with  a  roguish  air.  "  And 
he  was  terribly  faddy.  Oh,  it  was  just  ivery  fad  under 
the  sun,  my  nephew  says ;  and  off  wi'  the  old  fad 
on  wi'  the " 

"  New,"  the  red-faced  woman  suggested. 

"  Ay.  .  .  .  He  wasn't  just  over  popular  among  the 
lads  by  what  my  nephew  says  ;  he'd  a  queer  sort  of 


THE  COMING  27 

manner,  kind  of,  and  kept  hisself  to  hisself .  .  .  .  More 
money  than  he  knows  what  to  do  with.  .  .  .  The 
father  was  one  of  the  Quentins  of  Belfast  and  Dublin, 

the  whisky  people "  The  black-dressed  woman 

uttered  a  contemptuous  little  laugh.  "  And  the  mother 
was  one  of  the  Carries,  the  shortbread  people,  so  she'd 
bring  something."  As  the  black-dressed  woman 
made  the  last  statement  her  touch  lacked  sureness. 

"  Whisky  and  shortbread,"  gurgled  the  red-faced 
woman,  and  they  shook  with  laughter. 

"  He's  a  house  down  at  Fauldstane,"  the  black- 
dressed  woman  said. 

"  Indeed  ?  I  know  Fauldstane  very  well — very  well 
indeed,  though  it's  a  good  few  years  since  I've  been 
there." 

"  You  don't  I  "  the  black-dressed  woman  exclaimed. 
"  Now  isn't  that  strange  ?  Isn't  it  strange  how 
you " 

"  Come  across  people,"  the  red-faced  woman  offered. 

"  Ay."  The  black-dressed  woman  nodded  zestfully. 
"  Well,  I've  never  seen  the  house,  but  my  nephew  has. 
Kooogh  !  There  was  a  lot  about  it  in  the  papers  at  the 
time  he  was  building  it — some  very  smart  verses  about 
it  in  The  Mercury.  I  must  say  I  like  The  Mercury. 
It's  such  a  bright,  chatty  little  paper  to " 

"  Take  up.  But  what's  particular  about  the 
house  ?  " 

"  It's  a  daft-like  thing,"  the  black-dressed  woman 
said,  bitterly  contemptuous.  She  repelled  the  stare  of 
a  twisting  indignant  man  on  the  bench  in  front  of  her. 
The  red-faced  woman,  less  gallantly  hostile  to  the 
speaker,  moved  uneasily.  "  The  house  is  at  a  corner 
where  the  top  of  yon  road  that  runs  down  to  the 
sea  joins  the  main  road,"  the  black-dressed  woman 


28  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

whispered.  "  It's  new  built  and  they  say  ivery  room's 
a  different  colour.  There's  a  rid  room  and  a  blue  room 
and  a  yellow  room  and  a  pink  room  and  one  that's  pure 
white.  He'll  need  to  wipe  his  shoes — ang  ?  Kooogh  ! 
I  suppose  there's  a  heliotrope  room,  too." 

At  this  jest  the  two  women,  cowering,  shook  with 
laughter.  Two  men  turned  with  gasps  of  inarticulate 
protest.  The  black-dressed  woman  put  a  squeezed-up 
handkerchief  to  her  mouth  and  eyes. 

"  Now  you're  behaving  very  badly,"  she  said  archly. 
She  went  on  with  a  serious  air :  "  He's  a  motor-car 
and  a  splendid  big  garden  .  .  .  grounds.  Lots  of  the 
young  ladies  '11  have  their  eyes  on  him." 

The  red-faced  woman's  glistening  eyes  travelled 
about  the  room,  noting  the  female  faces  and  figures. 
With  no  obvious  reason  they  paused,  vaguely  antago- 
nistic in  expression,  on  a  young  woman  who  sat  on  a 
front  bench  facing  the  right  side  of  the  platform. 

For  no  obvious  reason  :  for  this  woman  had  neither 
beauty  nor  the  air  of  suggesting  that  she  possessed  it. 
She  sat  in  rather  a  slouching  loose-limbed  way,  and 
wore  a  black  straw  hat  and  a  coat  of  mole  fur  over  a 
frock  of  some  thin  palely-coloured  stuff.  Her  fine 
eyes  were  gazing  steadily  towards  the  platform.  .  .  . 
The  red-faced  woman's  glance  left  her,  returned  to  her. 

"  Who's  she  ?  "  the  red-faced  woman  whispered. 

"  It's  Miss  Morland,"  the  woman  in  black  said. 
"  She's  a  gym.  teacher.  He — "  slightingly  signify- 
ing Michael — "  employs  her  in  some  sort  of  fancy 
night-classes  he  has  for  the  poor  Irish  in  the  slums  •. 
she  teaches  them  songs  and  games  and  so  on  :  he  pays 
her  a  good  wage  for  it  too,  I  believe.  Fancy  paying  a 
woman  to  teach  kiddies  to  play  theirselfs  !  Fooof ! 
Hard  enough  to  teach  them  to  do  their  work,  I'd  think. 


THE  COMING  29 

.  .  .  She  used  to  be  a  school-teacher,  but  she  gave  it  up 
and  went  in  for  gym.  when  it  first  got  to  be  so  much  the 
thing  here.  .  .  .  Oh,  she's  not  that  young — no.  .  .  . 
I've  been  thinking  of  joining  one  of  her  ladies'  classes 
myself  to  see  if  it'll  do  anything  for  a  digestive 
trouble  I've  got.  .  .  ." 

"  May  I  ask  if  you're  Irish  ?  "  the  red-faced  woman 
said  humbly,  after  a  mysterious  linking  of  ideas. 

The  black-dressed  woman  smiled  in  a  kind  of 
annoyed  derision,  twisting  her  head  sideways. 

"  No-o.  My  mother's  Highland,  so  I  suppose  I've 
a  right  to  call  myself  a  Celt." 

"  I  am  Irish  myself — partly,"  the  red-faced  woman 
said,  propitiating. 

"  No,  are  you  ?  "  There  was  a  generous  surprise  in 
the  black-dressed  woman's  voice.  "  Now,  I  niver 
could  tell  from  your  speech — though  there's  something 
about  the  eyes  ..." 

"  I've  lived  in  Glasgow  since  I  was  four  years  old," 
the  red-faced  woman  said  with  a  sigh,  rippled  by  a 
foolish  little  laugh.  ..."  I  just  saw  one  of  the  meet- 
ings advertised  and  came  along  to  see  what  sort  of 
thing  it  was.  I've  always  taken  an  interest  in  any- 
thing occult." 

The  black-dressed  woman  nodded  hurriedly,  with 
no  desire  to  know  the  meaning  of  the  word. 

"  There's  a  kind  of  quickness  in  the  Irish,"  she  said. 
"  A  humourousness.  It's  what  they  call  the  Celtic 
Spirit.  .  .  .  We  Scotch  people  as  a  rule  are  more  slow 
and  solid  .  .  .  more  ..." 

"  Reserved,"  the  red-faced  woman  contributed. 
The  other  nodded  repeatedly  and  vivaciously. 

"  Ay  ...  we  Scotch  people  don't  say  all  we've  got 
to  say  to  strangers.  We  take  longer  to  make  friends 


30  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

and  we're  more  cautious  about  speaking  out  our  minds 
.  .  .  making  remarks  on  folks  .  .  .  afraid  of  being 
hauled  up  for  it.  ...  Kooogh  !  You  can  always  rely 
on  a  Scotch  body  .  .  .  hearty  and  homely.  The 
Irish  are  more  excitable — more  treacherous  in  a  way, 
I  think.  .  .  ." 

The  lean  woman's  noddings  shook  her  speech  into 
inarticulateness.  Glances  stole  in  her  direction  from 
the  sitting  people  who  represented  the  mercurial  Irish 
nation. 

"  I  sometimes  think  that  Ireland  has  been  kept  as 
she  is — poor  and  ignorant  and  unsuccessful  in  material 
things — because  she's  been  chosen  for  this  mission," 
Michael  said,  struggling  physically  to  make  his  voice 
audible  above  the  loudening  talk  in  the  benches, 
struggling  mentally  to  break  through  the  hard  shells  of 
indifference  which  isolated  the  minds  of  these  people. 
"  To  remind  us  the  poetry  in  the  world  now  is  the  voice 
of  God  that  speaks  to  the  outcast  among  people  and 
nations.  Perhaps  prosperous  and  well-educated  coun- 
tries cannot  be  prayerful  and  simple  :  they  lose  the 
power  to  wonder  and  believe.  Revelations  were 
generally  made  to  people  who  hadn't  much  to  stand 
between  them  and  eternity — not  much  material  stuff 
nor  intellectual  stuff — nothing  to  stop  their  ears  with 
dust  or  to  harden  their  hearts  with  pride.  The  sham- 
rock lies  close  to  the  ground  :  it  hasn't  thorns  like  the 
rose — it  can't  wound  like  the  thistle.  Perhaps  it's  by 
reason  of  this  humbleness  that  Ireland  has  been  chosen 
as  the  place  from  which  the  light  is  to  come  again  as  it 
did  in  the  old  days.  The  light  of  faith  and  purity  and 
ove  :  the  light  in  which  we  shall  see,  not  only  our 
countrymen  but  all  our  fellow-men,  and  shall  recognise 
the  truth  that  we  are  all  parts  of  one  another  and  that 


THE   COMING  31 

we  cannot  wound  a  fellow-man  without  hurting  our- 
selves and  wronging  God.  .  .  ." 

"  He's  a  blether,"  the  black-dressed  woman  said. 

"  Even  the  group  of  us  here,"  Michael  continued, 
"  can  do  much  to  keep  alive  in  our  hearts  and  in  the 
lives  of  our  poorer  countrymen  exiled  here  the  image  of 
the  old  Eire,  the  beloved  of  the  gods,  the  archetype  of 
nations  ;  we  may  do  something — much — to  restore  a 
faith  and  interest  in  the  things  called  supernatural — 
to  fight  against  the  deadening  power  of  materialism 
— to  bring  back  the  knowledge  and  trust,  the  beauty 
and  simplicity,  of  the  times  when  the  gods  were  not 
ashamed  to  eat  with  men  and  animals  and  the  '  good 
people  '  had  no  fear  of  them." 

Michael's  face  was  lighted  by  the  joy  of  his  own 
thoughts  :  it  seemed  to  him  that  they  must  be  quite 
plain  to  at  least  some  of  those  present.  He  stood, 
bending  forwards,  both  hands  on  the  table.  There 
was  a  flash  from  a  fine  diamond  on  his  finger  and  the 
two  gossiping  women  looked  at  each  other  and  nodded. 
Michael's  hair  was  of  a  bright  yellow-brown.  As  he 
spoke  a  flush  came  into  his  face,  the  hues  of  his  lips 
and  eyes  deepened  :  but  a  lock  of  the  strongly  coloured 
hair,  straying  on  his  forehead,  emphasised  a  glazy  blue- 
whiteness  of  skin  which  was,  normally,  characteristic 
of  his  whole  face. 

There  was  a  murmur  in  a  deep  male  voice  of :  "I 

should  like  to  ask  him "  Michael's  eyes  flashed 

into  those  of  the  speaker,  who  blushed.  He  was  a 
young  man  in  blue  serge  and  yellow  boots.  A  saucy 
little  smile  peeped  out  from  under  the  plump  little  dark 
moustache  which,  contrasting  with  the  smooth  pink- 
ness  of  his  cheeks,  gave  a  suggestion  of  waxworks. 

"  Y — yes,"  Michael  faltered.      "  You  want  to  ask 


32  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

something,  Mr.  .  .  .  ?  Please  do.  Please  all  remem- 
ber I  don't  want  these  meetings  to  be  formal — more 
like  talks  between  friends.  .  .  ." 

The  young  man's  blush  intensified  and  some  ner- 
vousness mingled  with  the  impudence  of  his  smile. 

"  Cowie's  my  name,"  he  said.  "  Dr.  Alexander 
Cowie."  He  spoke  slowly  in  his  deep  voice  and  with 
that  air  of  claiming  general  attention  which  charac- 
terises the  wit  of  a  debating  society.  The  people  on 
the  benches,  half  roused,  were  waiting. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Chairman,"  the  young  man  said,  "  I 
couldn't  help  wondering  while  I  was  listening  to  you 
— you'll  excuse  me  putting  the  question  and  you'll 
understand,  I  hope,  that  it's  put  in  no  spirit  of  opposi- 
tion .  .  ."  Michael  bowed  solemnly,  flushing  at  the 
flare  of  all  those  eyes,  turned,  with  a  sort  of  slow 
suddenness,  on  his  face.  They  seemed  to  him  like  the 
eyes  of  reptiles,  curious,  yet  half  lethargic,  coldly 
hostile.  "Thanks," Cowie  said.  "  Well, Mr. Chairman, 
thinks  I,  listening  to  you — I  wonder  if  the  Chairman 
believes  in  fairies." 

There  was  a  kind  of  jerk  in  the  mental  atmosphere 
of  the  room  ;  then  an  outburst  of  laughter. 

"  I  don't  know,"  Michael  said,  angry  and  hurt. 
"  Why  shouldn't  I  ?  "  His  eyes  defied  those  of  Cowie, 
which  were  full  of  a  genuine  amusement.  "  I  suppose 
most  of  you  here  are  Christians  ?  "  Michael  said. 
"  You  believe  in  angels  ?  " 

"  Well,  with  the  ladies  here  I  don't  see  how  we  can 
help  ourselves,"  Cowie  said. 

Loud  laughter.  Since  the  founding  of  the  Eire 
Club  the  members  had  not  been  united  by  an  im- 
pulse so  vivid  and  so  common.  People,  with  shining 
eyes  and  open  mouths,  looked  into  the  faces  of 


THE  COMING  33 

their  neighbours,  then  leaned  forward  peering  at 
Cowie. 

"  Oh,  he's  too  comical !  "  the  red-faced  woman  said. 
She  added  with  a  strange  simpering  consciousness  : 
"  He's  a  good-looking  young  fellow." 

Racie  Moore  looked  up  sideways  at  Michael,  just 
touched  his  elbow.  Racie's  lips  suggested  the  word  : 
"  Patullo." 

"  Yes,"  Michael  murmured  defiantly.  He  faced 
Cowie,  who  had  risen  again  to  an  accompaniment  of 
expectant  mirth. 

"  Excuse  me,  Mr.  Chairman,  may  I  ask  another 
question  ?  "  There  was  a  smirk  on  Cowie's  rose-red 
lips  under  the  toy-looking  moustache. 

"  Certainly,"  Michael  said  in  apprehension,  his  face 
whitening. 

"  Well,  it's  this,  Mr.  Chairman — if  you'll  excuse  me 
and  believe  that  the  question  is  put  in  quite  a  friendly 
spirit.  I  couldn't  help  it  arising  in  my  mind  while  I 
was  sitting  listening  to  you  speaking  so  eloquently 
about  Ireland  and  about  poverty  and  humility  bring- 
ing us  nearer  to" Cowie  suddenly  halted  and, 

flushing,  said  in  a  lowered  voice — "  nearer  to  heaven. 
...  I  just  dropped  in  about  ten  minutes  ago  and  I 
may  have  taken  you  up  quite  wrongly." 

"  Please  ask  your  question.  I  want  to  make  the 
objects  of  the  club  quite  clear  to  every  one,"  Michael 
said.  His  intention  was  to  make  Cowie  feel  that  he  was 
ready  to  hear  courteously  anything  that  he  had  to  say 
and  was  animated  by  a  pleasant,  chairman-like  desire 
to  put  an  end  to  his  questioner's  hesitation.  But 
Michael's  dread  was  increased  by  the  note  of  roguish- 
ness  in  Cowie's  tone.  Michael  felt  certain  from  much 
dismal  experience  that  he  was  going  to  be  wounded ; 

c 


34  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

and  his  voice  winced  and  rasped.  There  was  a  move- 
ment of  indignation  in  the  benches  at  the  tone  that 
he  was  taking  with  this  nice  young  man. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Chairman,"  Cowie  said  with  a  slow 
pompous  enjoyment  of  his  own  articulateness,  "  I 
don't  agree  with  you  about  poverty.  I  think  we've 
too  much  poverty,  and  that  so  far  from  bringing  us 
nearer  to  heaven  it  brings  some  of  us  nearer  to  the 
other  place Cowie  paused  for  a  little  applaud- 
ing murmur  to  rise  and  fall.  "  However,  that  is  not 
the  point  just  now.  I  would  like  to  know  this  :  As 
Ireland  is  so  poor  and  humble  and  as  poverty  and 
humility  are  such  good  things — why  you  don't  go  back 
to  Ireland  and  be  as  poor  and  humble  as  you  like  ?  " 

Through  the  clash  and  jangle  of  laughter,  Michael 
was  aware  of  Cowie' s  voice  saying  something  else. 
The  young  man  was  still  on  his  feet,  blushing  now  and 
half  penitent.  .  .  .  Michael,  grave,  stood  waiting  with 
a  sick  sensation  till  the  noise  was  over.  Racie,  grave, 
sat  with  unuplifted  lids.  Old  Patullo,  pausing  now 
and  then  to  wipe  his  watering  eyes,  was  scuffling  paper. 
It  occurred  to  Michael,  composedly,  that  Patullo 
almost  never  laughed  nor  smiled. 

"  No  doubt  you've  a  good  reason.  I  only  thought 
I  might  ask,"  Cowie's  voice  came. 

"Exactly,"  Michael  said.  "Not  at  all.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  I  gave  my  reason  the  first  night  we  met." 

"  But  I  wasnie  there,"  Cowie  said  quaintly ;  and 
the  people  laughed  again,  the  black-dressed  woman 

stifling  a  rapturous  :  "  Oh,  isn't  he !  "  in  her  ball 

of  handkerchief. 

"  No  ?  "  Michael  said,  calm  now.  "  We  can  discuss 
it  another  time.  In  the  meantime  I  won't  take  up 
any  more  of  the  evening.  Perhaps  I've  taken  too  long 


THE  COMING  85 

already.  ..."  The  people  stodgily  refrained  from 
contradiction  and  Michael  faltered,  "  Uh  ! — I  will 
now  call  upon  Mr.  Patullo  to  give  us  his  paper  on 
Terence  O'Reilly,  with  whose  poems " — Michael's 
glance  scuttered  along  the  benches  and  in  his  voice 
there  was  a  little  crack  which  may  have  expressed 
mirth  or  desperation  or  both — "most  of  us  are 
familiar.  .  .  ." 

Michael's  voice  died  away  :  he  looked  down  into  the 
red  eyes  of  Thomas  Patullo.  Patullo  had  pulled  the 
chairman's  elbow,  he  was  saying  something  in  a 
whisper,  he  was  gesticulating,  his  look  was  of  concern 
and  appeal :  but  at  first  Michael  could  realise  only  the 
old  man's  ugliness.  There  was  something  shameful  to 
humanity  in  Patullo's  face  thus  upturned  in  the  gas- 
light and  seen  in  the  frankness  of  an  emotion. 

Patullo  said  it  all  over  again  :  the  words  came  up 
floated  on  an  odour  of  whisky.  Racie  was  leaning 
over,  whispering,  frowning  :  his  full  face,  with  a  line 
between  his  brows  and  his  eyes  wide  open,  was,  by 
contrast  to  Patullo's,  of  so  refreshing  a  beauty  that 
Michael  felt  grateful  to  his  friend.  Urged  by  signs 
from  Racie,  Michael  tried  to  get  the  gist  of  Patullo's 
murmurings. 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,"  Michael  said  pleadingly, 
"  Mr.  Patullo  regrets  he  has  left  a  portion  of  his  manu- 
script at  home.  Only  some  quotations  from  O'Reilly, 
which  Mr.  Patullo  tells  me  he  meant  to  read  at  the  end 
of  the  paper.  So  Mr.  Patullo  will  just  go  on  with  the 
paper  while  I  fetch  the  missing  sheets.  My  motor  is 
just  at  hand  and  I  shan't  be  absent  more  than  twenty 
minutes." 

Old  Patullo,  after  shaky  searchings  in  his  pockets, 
gave  Michael  a  latch-key  and  a  page  from  a  diary  with 


36  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

his  address  scribbled  upon  it.  The  people  in  the 
benches  exchanged  glances  as  the  young  chairman 
made  his  announcement  and  left  the  platform.  "  Did 
you  ever  see  anything  as  ill-managed  as  yon  ?  "  whis- 
pered the  lean  woman  in  the  camphorated  blacks.  She 
bridled,  definitely  hostile,  at  the  mention  of  the  motor. 
Indeed  there  was  a  general  feeling  that  this,  like 
Michael's  evening  dress,  was  a  solecism,  an  evidence  of 
plutocratic  pride.  Even  Cowie,  recently  so  buoyant 
and  self -rejoicing,  stiffened  into  hufnness  as  if  a  thistle 
were  sprouting  inside  him.  There  was  giggling  in  the 
benches  :  some  one  coughed — with  a  hint  of  a  jeer — 
as  Michael  vanished. 

Michael  went  with  a  red  face,  trembling  with  shame 
and  the  anger  that  was  in  his  heart.  His  disgust  made 
it  clear  to  him  that  these  people  were  themselves  ludi- 
crous, that  they  were  vulgar,  pathetic  in  their  preten- 
sions ;  that  in  individual  cases  they  were  ugly  and  en- 
vious of  his  advantages.  It  was  a  well-known  pheno- 
menon of  human  nature  that  the  vulgar,  uneasy,  tried 
to  hide  their  fear  by  a  yelling  mockery,  foolish  and 
mirthless.  .  .  .  Michael  did  not  succeed  in  consoling 
himself  with  these  thoughts  as  he  scurried  down  to  the 
garage.  Always  there  was  the  burning  sense  that  he 
was  mocked.  It  seemed  to  him  that  these  people  had 
wanted  to  be  unkind.  Why  ?  What  harm  had  he 
willed  to  them  ?  The  coming  of  Alexander  Cowie  with 
his  blue  suit  and  yellow  boots  and  his  self-delight 
seemed  to  Michael  to  complete  the  destruction  of  his 
hopes.  The  people's  joy  in  Cowie  was  a  deathly  sign. 
He  had  not  got  hold  of  the  right  people  for  the  Eire 
Club.  Were  there  any  right  people  to  get  ?  Any- 
where ?  Michael's  heart  shrank  from  the  dreary 
dread  ;  from  the  cold  mystery  of  these  people's  action 


THE   COMING  37 

in  becoming  members.  He  tried  to  think  of  the 
simple,  of  the  poor,  and  humble  ;  and  there  came  a 
vision  of  the  rooms  in  the  East-end  and  the  South-side 
of  the  city  where  he  and  his  helpers  assembled  groups 
of  their  countrymen  and  countrywomen  ;  fed  the 
people  and  read  to  them  poetry  and  tales  and  taught 
the  children  the  Erse  language  and  Irish  songs  and 
dances.  Michael  visualised  the  rooms  and  the  figures 
and  faces  ;  the  stupid  twinkle  that  came  into  the  eyes, 
the  stupid  smile  on  the  mouths  ;  the  ridicule  which  was 
the  stronghold  of  stodginess.  ,  .  .  One  of  the  places 
was  above  a  public-house,  and  the  fruity  odours,  rising, 
were  a  cynical  reminder  of  how  Michael  Quentin  had 
got  the  money  which  he  was  using  to  remind  the  world 
that  there  were  gods  behind  the  door  which  parted 
earth  from  heaven  and  keys  for  the  opening  of  the  door. 
.  .  .  Michael  had  engaged,  at  a  handsome  salary,  as 
instructor  in  physical  exercises,  Miss  Morland,  recom- 
mended by  Thomas  Patullo.  Not  by  Patullo  alone, 
let  it  be  understood  ;  for  Miss  Morland  was  teaching 
in  several  schools  and  possessed  diplomas.  Besides, 
Michael  himself  was  not  ignorant  of  these  matters  and 
knew  that  Miss  Morland,  though  an  Englishwoman, 
could  dance  a  jig.  .  .  .  Racie  came  very  faithfully  to 
these  meetings.  In  all  of  Michael's  mental  pictures  of 
them  Racie's  figure  seemed  to  preside  ;  still  of  profile 
with  just  that  quiet  glance  from  the  corner  of  his  eye 
when  things  were  going  too  far  ;  profoundly  cynical, 
patient.  It  intensified  Michael's  bitterness  against 
these  people  that  they  had  mocked  him  in  Racie's 
presence. 

The  relief  of  mere  physical  escape  was.immense  ;  the 
rush  of  the  car,  the  darkness  of  the  violet  night,  the 
blurred  golden  lights.  Michael's  cheeks  cooled  ;  even 


88  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

his  heart  was  a  little  less  hot.  He  struggled  with  the 
idea  of  staying  away  and  letting  the  members  of  the 
club  go  to  their  own  peculiar  lumpy  devil.  No  :  he 
was  going  back,  he  was  going  to  finish  the  evening  with 
conventional  decency  :  he  was  going  to  show  a  quiet 
indifference  to  Cowie.  He  was  positive  that  Cowie 
had  not  a  drop  of  Irish  blood  in  his  body  !  Michael 
felt  that  he  had  been  foolish  in  not  safeguarding  the 
entrance  to  the  club.  Racie's  fault  with  his  wretched 
pessimism  !  .  .  .  How  was  Cowie  to  be  got  rid  of  ? 
Instinctively  Michael  recognised  that  Cowie  repre- 
sented the  things  most  inimical  to  his  ideal  Eire  Club  ; 
and  the  traitorous  hearts  of  the  people  held  something 
that  responded  to  Cowie,  that  delighted  in  Cowie — 
something,  in  fact,  that  was  Cowie.  Michael  had  had 
at  the  first  meeting  of  Cowie's  eyes  with  his  a  sense  of 
closing  struggle. 

Tosh  stopped  the  car. 

"  This  is  Twenty-three  Lochaber  Gardens,  sir." 

Michael  got  down.  He  was  in  a  part  of  the  city  un- 
known to  him.  Tenements  loomed  on  either  side, 
softly  massed  in  the  mistiness  of  the  night :  Michael 
noticed  with  a  dreamy  wonder  that  the  fronts  of  these 
buildings  were  of  an  almost  unbroken  darkness.  The 
golden  reflections  of  the  street-lamps  seemed  to  dive 
into  the  wet  pavements.  Between  the  blurred  violet 
above  and  the  glimmering  slough  of  the  street,  the 
motor  suggested  some  monster,  in  deep  water,  with 
shining  eyes  shooting  out  glances  for  prey. 

Michael  entered  the  "  close,"  dusty,  gaily  tiled  ; 
mounted  the  stairs,  studying  the  brass-plates  on  the 
doors.  Strange  little  houses,  secrets  to  a  man  who 
lived  among  the  well-to-do  and  studied  the  wretched  ! 
Michael  had  no  notion  of  what  sort  of  rooms  there  were 


THE   COMING  39 

behind  those  closed  doors,  nor  of  the  kind  of  labour 
that  supported  those  hidden  families  in  their  occult 
lives  within.  On  each  door  there  was  a  name-plate, 
little  or  large  :  in  each  there  was  a  letter-box  for  mes- 
sages of  life  and  death  :  before  each  lay  a  mat,  coir  or 
coco-nut,  with  an  anxious  air  of  decency.  The  steps 
had  an  odour  of  pipeclay  and  were  still  damp  from  the 
washing  of  unseen  hands.  A  gaslight  burned  half- 
heartedly on  each  landing.  Through  the  open  window 
on  a  landing  came  the  voice  of  a  cat — guttural,  furious, 
exultant.  Michael  did  not  know  in  what  sort  of  place 
the  animal  was  wandering  :  his  thought  was  that  the 
cat  had  always  remained  a  wild-hearted  creature,  a 
child  of  the  Night  and  the  Earth  ;  and,  at  the  poignant 
cry,  he  had  a  vision  of  woods  and  waters,  not  at  all  of  a 
neat  little  back-court  with  red  ash  on  the  paths  and 
perhaps  a  fish-bone  or  two  in  the  grass. 

Reaching  the  topmost  story,  Michael  found  two 
doors  fronting  each  other,  neither  of  them  bearing  a 
name-plate.  One  of  the  doors  was  dusty  and  damaged 
with  no  mat  in  front  of  it,  with  a  rough-edged  hole  in 
place  of  a  letter-box,  with  iridescent  hues  on  the  un- 
polished brass  of  the  bell  and  handle.  The  other,  with 
its  glittering  brass  and  trim  coir  mat,  had  by  contrast 
a  smiling  air. 

Michael  considered  the  torn  diary-sheet,  marked 
with  the  greasy  imprint  of  the  papillae  of  Patullo's 
fingers,  quaveringly  scrawled  with  the  number. 
Twenty-three  no  doubt.  One  of  these  two  flats  must 
be  Patullo's  ;  and  Michael  concluded  that  an  empty 
house  lay  behind  the  neglected  door.  He  thrust  the 
latch-key  into  the  lock  of  the  other. 

The  key  went  in  briskly ;  then  stuck,  and  refused 
to  turn  or  emerge.  As  he  shook  it,  Michael  heard  a 


40  THE   ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

swift,  soft  sound  as  of  unshod  feet  on  the  floor.  A 
match  was  scraped  on  emery — sc'rrpitz  ! 

"  Who's  there  ?  "  a  voice  said. 

It  might  have  been  a  child's  voice,  but  Michael  knew 
that  it  was  a  young  woman's.  It  was  high-pitched, 
gentle,  rather  frightened  ;  and  it  held  a  curious  note 
of  intense  expectancy. 

"  Does  Mr.  Patullo  live  here  ?  "  Michael  asked. 
"  Excuse  me.  He  gave  me  the  key.  I've  come  for  a 
manuscript  of  his." 

"  Mr.  Patullo  is  next  door,"  the  voice  said.  It  had 
descended  now  to  the  opening  of  the  letter-box  ;  and 
as  Michael  bent  to  reply,  he  was  suddenly  conscious  of 
the  scent  of  a  rose.  It  was  as  if  a  rose  were  unfolding 
just  inside  the  door,  as  if  the  little  flat  were  planted 
with  brier-bushes  for  the  bearing  of  a  wonderful 
blossom  of  colour  and  perfume. 

"  So  sorry,"  Michael  said.  "  I  beg  pardon.  I 
thought  the  other  flat  was  empty,  and  as  Mr.  Patullo 
certainly  said  twenty-three,  and  I'd  looked  at  all  the 
other  doors " 

"  Yes." 

"  So  sorry  if  I've  alarmed  you.     Thank  you." 

"  Not  at  all." 

For  a  few  moments  Michael  remained,  bending  ;  and 
the  breath  of  the  rose  still  came  to  him.  Then,  sud- 
denly, there  was  a  soft  scuffle  of  feet  moving  away. 
Michael  drew  in  his  breath,  inhaling  the  sweetness  that 
lingered ;  stood  up  straight  with  a  quickly  beating 
heart  and  shining  staring  eyes. 

In  Patullo's  flat  the  flash  of  Michael's  electric  pocket 
lamp  showed  him  the  door  of  the  parlour.  Patullo 
had  said  that  the  manuscript  sheets  had  been  left  on 


THE  COMING  41 

the  table  in  that  room.  The  ray  from  the  lantern 
falling  on  the  painted  boards  in  a  corner  showed  rolls  of 
dust  that  danced  to  the  swing  of  the  door.  The  little 
room  had  hotly  red  walls  and  was  filled  with  pieces  of 
furniture  too  large  for  the  spaces  and  turned  at  all 
sorts  of  angles,  suggesting  to  Michael's  imagination  a 
mass  of  floating,  jostling  wreckage.  Above  the  chim- 
ney-piece was  a  cluster  of  little  brown  pictures — 
carbon-prints  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites.  Two  rows  of 
shelves  overflowed  with  books  mostly  bound  in  paper. 
A  red  fire  was  dying  in  the  grate  :  a  brown  earthen- 
ware spittoon  stood  on  the  tiled  hearth,  a  breakfast- 
cup  with  dregs  of  tea  beside  it :  the  air  was  warm  and 
fetid  with  lurking  odours. 

Michael  bent  over  the  papers  on  the  table.  This 
foul  little  house  struck  on  his  senses  with  the  same 
shameful  feeling  of  exposure  as  he  had  felt  on  looking 
into  Patullo's  face  upturned  in  the  gaslight.  The 
room,  with  its  medley  of  old  furniture  and  books,  with 
the  exquisite  handwriting  of  the  manuscripts  on  the 
table,  with  the  soft  little  pictures,  the  gross  cuspidor 
and  slovenly  cup  and  saucer — the  room  was  an  ex- 
pression of  Thomas  Patullo's  personality  as  Michael 
saw  it.  It  told  of  social  descents,  of  miseries  and  hu- 
miliations, of  the  survival  of  a  certain  sensitiveness. 
.  .  .  The  old  man  had  appeared  out  of  his  unknown 
life  in  response  to  Michael's  advertisement.  Patullo, 
at  that  first  meeting,  had  talked  a  great  deal  about 
himself,  about  the  little  things  in  literature  that  he 
had  done,  about  the  people  whom  he  knew,  about  the 
newspapers  on  which  he  had  friends.  Michael  had 
paid  little  attention  to  these  particulars  at  the  time  : 
but  now,  languidly,  the  scene  came  back  to  him  ;  with 
the  awkward  group  of  persons  interested  in  Celtic 


42  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

literature  assembled  in  Mrs.  Wylie's  dining-room ; 
with  Patullo  babbling,  in  the  joy  of  having  listeners  ; 
with  Racie  sitting  silent  with  downcast  lids,  patient, 
profoundly  cynical.  .  .  .  Michael  flushed  as  he  bent 
over  the  littered  table,  searching.  What  concern  of 
his  was  it  if  Patullo  had  descended  through  a  succes- 
sion of  material  and  moral  degradations,  bringing  with 
him  as  salvage  a  refined  accent,  a  sensuous  love  of 
beauty,  a  knowledge  of  the  classics  ?  A  poor  country- 
man was  not  to  be  received  with  suspicious  question- 
ings, but  to  be  welcomed,  borne  with,  helped.  .  .  . 

Let  him  find  the  papers  and  get  out  of  this  un- 
mannerly dreaming  in  another  man's  house,  out  of 
this  sickly  physical  atmosphere  of  tobacco  and  whisky, 
of  tea  and  dirty  draperies  ;  out  of  this  sickly  mental 
atmosphere  of  disgust !  It  was  a  vile  thing  for  a  man 
to  feel  loathing  of  his  less  fortunate  fellow-creatures. 
.  .  .  Michael  searched  among  the  papers  for  those 
that  Patullo  had  described.  Everywhere  there  was  an 
orderliness  of  detail  in  numbering  and  lettering  ;  and 
everywhere  the  whole  was  confusion,  with  the  punc- 
tilious letters  and  numbers  unaccountably  appearing 
or  failing  to  appear.  It  was  as  if  a  brilliantly  methodi- 
cal mind  had  been  shattered  into  sparkling  fragments 
which  could  not  cohere.  A  list  of  Patullo's  pupils, 
with  the  sum  due  to  him  from  each,  lay  over  a  beau- 
tifully written  fragment  of  Greek ;  a  set  of  test 
questions  and  an  inventory  of  shirts  and  towels  were 
pinned  to  a  printed  paragraph  on  herring  fishing, 
signed  "  T.  P." 

Suddenly,  among  the  ruled  papers,  Michael  turned 
up  a  sheet  of  notepaper,  written  on  in  a  big,  distinct, 
ungainly  hand.  The  words  on  the  sheet  had  jumped 
to  his  brain  before  he  realised  what  he  held. 


THE   COMING  48 

Hurriedly,  shamefacedly,  he  hid  the  sheet  and   con- 
tinued to  search.  .  .  . 

"...  must  know  that  there  is  no  good  in  saying 
things  of  that  sort  to  me.  All  that  I  can  ever  feel  for 
a  man  or  that  any  woman  can  feel  for  a  man  I  felt 
long  ago  for  you,  and  to  talk  to  me  of  a  settling-down 
with  another  man  ..." 

An  old  fellow  like  Patullo  to  be  having  an  affair  with 
a  woman  ! — that  was  all  that  Michael  permitted 
himself  to  think  :  he  left  the  thought  behind  as  he  left 
the  nauseating  atmosphere  of  Patullo's  flat.  What 
had  he  to  do  with  the  meaning  of  either  ?  With  the 
manuscript  in  his  hand  Michael  ran  downstairs  and 
jumped  into  the  motor.  He  wanted  to  get  this  busi- 
ness over,  to  end  up  the  weary  evening  at  the  club  with 
all  that  he  could  assume  of  cheer  and  composure  ; 
then  to  escape — to  be  free  to  think.  The  sleeping 
hours  were  coming,  the  hours  of  sweet  follies,  of 
thoughts  that  fled  from  the  daylight.  Nobody  sneered 
at  a  dreamer  lying  dumb  in  the  darkness  :  nobody 
could  be  even  silently  cynical  of  the  secret  things  that 
one  imagined,  alone  in  the  night — things  as  sweetly 
secret  as  the  heart  of  a  not  yet  unfolded  rose. 

When  Michael  came  to  town  it  was  his  habit  to 
lodge  with  a  Mrs.  Wylie,  a  woman  who  was  accus- 
tomed to  him.  Perhaps  her  way  of  regarding  him  was 
as  a  lodger  rather  than  as  a  citizen  :  for  it  is  a  fact 
that  she  saw  in  Michael  none  of  that  eccentricity 
which  was  remarked,  with  resentment  or  amusement, 
by  most  of  the  people  who  were  acquainted  with  him. 
Michael's  power  of  settling  without  a  hesitation,  with 
out  even  a  lifting  of  the  brows,  put  him,  in  Mrs.  Wylie's 
esteem,  into  the  class  labelled  "  gentry."  It  had 


44  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

never  occurred  to  her  that  a  gentleman  could  be  ridi- 
culous. Certain  of  his  habits  she  noted  and  remem- 
bered and  made  the  subject  of  conversation  ;  but  this 
from  a  sense  of  duty,  with  respect,  even  admiringly. 
Thus,  she  had  told  the  neighbours,  and  the  members 
of  her  own  family,  of  Michael's  custom  of  taking  a  hot 
bath  every  evening  before  dinner  ;  of  the  fact  that  he 
changed,  down  to  his  very  skin,  every  evening  ;  of 
the  fact  that  his  under-things  were  all  of  silk.  He 
showed  a  quiet  readiness  in  paying  for  all  these  luxu- 
ries ;  and  this,  quite  simply,  from  Mrs.  Wylie's  point 
of  view,  lifted  them  up  out  of  the  region  of  faddism,  or 
side,  or  self-pampering,  into  the  atmosphere  of  self- 
respect  proper  to  one  of  the  gentry.  Considering 
Michael,  Mrs.  Wylie  had  no  detailed  memory  of  the 
public-houses  at  dusty  corners,  with  their  fruity  odours 
and  their  lettering  of  "  Quentin."  Her  consciousness 
was  of  the  result  of  all  these  public-houses — of  one  of 
the  results  at  least ;  of  Michael  with  his  nice  clothes 
and  toilet  articles,  his  white  hands  and  unoccupied 
hours,  his  unsurpassed  capacity  for  settling.  The 
singular  books  and  magazines  that  she  saw  in  Michael's 
rooms  and  his  various  odd-looking  callers — members 
of  the  societies  which  during  the  last  two  years  he  had 
been  sampling — were  accepted  by  Mrs.  Wylie  as  evi- 
dences that  the  young  man  was  educated.  The  young 
Wylies,  cheerful  oily  engineers,  who  played  banjos  in 
the  kitchen,  might  have  been  rebuked  by  their  mother 
had  they  chosen  their  companions  no  better  ;  and  they 
might  have  been  chaffed  by  her  had  they  worn  turn- 
down collars  like  Michael's,  or  pitched  their  voices  as 
high  as  his,  or  shown  as  nervous  a  "  want  of  manner." 
But  these  things,  derided  by  the  independent  members 
of  the  Eire  Club,  were  lost  to  Mrs.  Wylie  in  the  dazzle 


THE   COMING  45 

of  her  sense  of  Michael's  perfect  behaviour  as  a  lodger 
and  his  splendid  solvency. 

Into  this  atmosphere  of  deference  Michael  came 
from  the  uneasy  evening  at  the  Eire  Club,  as  he  had 
come  from  so  many  other  defeated  efforts — with  a 
battered  sense  of  failure,  with  a  burning  desire  to  hide 
and  forget.  It  was  like  stepping  out  of  a  crowded 
railway  carriage,  full  of  hostile  contacts,  on  to  the 
platform  of  a  lonely  country  station.  It  brought,  not 
the  warmth  of  comfort,  but  the  quietude  of  relief. 
Michael  had  told  himself  again  and  again,  creeping 
thus  into  Mrs.  Wylie's,  that  he  must  learn  to  be  con- 
tent with  the  lot  of  an  outcast :  then  when  his  bruises 
healed  he  devised  new  plans  for  coming  into  close 
contact  with  his  fellows.  To-night  he  had  longed  to 
let  this  Eire  Club,  which  was  not  his  Eire  Club,  follow 
to  the  limbo  into  which  the  rest  of  his  failures  had  been 
flung.  .  .  .  Patullo's  paper,  intolerably  second-hand, 
pedantic,  and  irrelevant,  had  brought  two  or  three 
members  to  their  feet :  they  had  spoken  about 
anything  except  Terence  O'Reilly's  poetry. 

The  vile  stodginess  that  sought  to  patronise  a  singer 
like  O'Reilly  !  The  piteous  cant  about  Irish  super- 
stition and  Irish  humour,  the  self-conscious  smirking 
comparisons  between  Celtic  animation  and  Saxon 
stolidity  !  And  always  ignorance  that  Michael  had 
formed  the  Eire  Club  for  any  reason  save  anecdotes 
and  ghastly  journalese  !  There  came  the  conviction 
that  Patullo  had  not  been  sober  and  that  Racie  had 
known  it  ...  that  the  lean  woman  in  black  had 
known  it  too  when  she  laughed. 

Yet,  since  his  return  with  Patullo's  manuscript, 
Michael's  thought  of  escape  was  no  longer  a  mere  jib- 
bing, wincing  desire  to  get  away  from  certain  things, 


46  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

but  a  longing  to  get  to  one  thing.  A  thing  awaited 
him  in  the  darkness,  in  the  hours  that  are  the  dreamer's, 
when  the  scoffer's  voice  is  silent  and  his  eyes  cannot 
behold.  It  was  a  thing  elusive  and  mysterious  and 
sweet  like  the  perfume  and  the  heart  of  a  rose. 

The  sense  of  rest  in  Mrs.  Wylie's  rooms  must  soon  be 
troubled  by  this  eager  desire.  Michael  ate  because 
Mrs.  Wylie  had  taken  pains  to  keep  the  food  hot  and 
the  wine  cold.  He  even  hesitated  to  go  to  bed  be- 
cause his  nice  landlady  had  obviously  tried  to  make 
the  dining-room  pleasant  with  flowers  and  newspapers. 
But  he  went,  leaving  his  letters  unopened  and  one  of 
the  papers  unfolded  at  the  variety  column. 

In  his  bedroom,  in  the  cool  darkness,  with  the  violet 
sky  showing  above  the  lowered  window-sash,  Michael 
suddenly  recalled  that  parlour  of  Thomas  Patullo. 
Michael  had  only  a  blind  wonder  about  Patullo,  a 
sense  of  waiting  till  some  one  should  explain  to  him 
the  incomprehensible  creature.  In  flight  from  this 
memory,  an  evil  monster  of  the  darkness,  the  young 
man  scraped  a  match-head  on  the  emery  of  the  box — 
sc'rrpitz  !  And  with  the  sound  there  came  the  sweet 
frightened  high-pitched  voice  with  that  touching  note 
of  expectancy,  and  the  shadowed  room  was  filled  with 
the  scent  of  a  rose. 

"  Who's  there  ?  " 

There  was  really  a  rose  on  his  dressing-table,  as 
Michael  saw  when  he  lighted  the  gas.  He  set  the 
flower-glass  by  his  bedside  so  that  the  wind,  blowing 
in,  might  carry  the  perfume  to  him  as  he  lay  in  the 
darkness.  With  every  waft  he  heard  again  the  sweet 
quivering  voice : 

"  Who's  there  ?  " 

It  might  have  been  a  child's  voice,  it  was  pitched  so 


THE   COMING  47 

high  and  inflected  so  guilelessly,  it  was  so  full  of  that 
eagerness  of  expectation.  But  Michael  knew  that  it 
was  a  woman's.  What  was  the  meaning  of  that  note 
in  her  voice  ?  For  what  was  her  heart  waiting  ? 
Michael  had  read  a  confusion  of  fairy-tales  and  legends, 
and  now  he  had  a  vision  of  a  Maeterlinck  princess, 
captive  and  mournful-eyed,  behind  a  tall  thorny  hedge 
of  roses  ;  calling  across  a  dimming  sunset-lit  country 
—calling,  calling,  till  another  voice  should  answer  .  .  . 
calling  in  a  maiden's  utmost  need  till  a  man  should 
hear.  .  .  . 

People  passed  in  the  street  under  Michael's  window. 
Footsteps  going  eastwards  suddenly  stopped,  with  a 
scurr  on  the  asphalt,  arresting  feet  that  were  passing 
westwards.  A  woman's  voice  exclaimed  softly,  in 
question  :  a  man's  replied  ;  and  Michael  heard  the 
footsteps  again,  falling  side  by  side,  passing  away  into 
the  night. 

He  lay  shuddering.  The  horror  of  the  city,  its 
awful  matter-of-factness,  seemed  to  be  stretching  ugly 
hands  after  him  into  that  dim  sunlit  land  of  dreams. 
A  woman's  voice  calling  in  her  utmost  need — and  a 
man's  answer !  .  .  .  Michael's  heart  struggled  to 
escape,  to  recover  the  rapture  of  his  dream.  The 
horrible  suggestive  footsteps  and  voices  were  gone  : 
the  wind,  blowing  in  gently  from  the  violet  darkness, 
again  brought  to  him  nothing  but  the  scent  of  the 
half-unfolded  red  rose.  Michael  tried  to  keep  awake 
so  that  that  sweet  thought  might  companion  him  : 
but,  before  his  fancy  could  paint  in  the  grey  tower, 
the  thorny  barrier,  and  the  blue  hills  from  which  the 
rescuer  came  riding,  he  fell  asleep. 

He  awoke  very  early,  as  was  natural  in  a  man  who 
had  become  accustomed  to  living  in  the  country  and 


48  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

sensitive  to  the  first  quiver  of  dawn  and  the  tunings 
of  the  birds.  Michael  came  back  to  a  consciousness 
that  something  pleasant  had  happened  to  him.  Then 
he  remembered  what  it  was  and  groped  among  his 
dreams  for  some  confirming  memory  of  a  meeting  with 
the  Maeterlinck  princess  of  mournful  eyes  and  tender 
expectant  voice.  Finding  none,  he  went  to  the  win- 
dow and  drew  up  the  holland  blind  which  was  glowing 
faintly,  artificially  sunshiny  in  the  first  influx  of  light. 
There  was  a  wood-yard  opposite  this  bedroom  window 
and  beyond  the  brown  and  blond  stacks  and  heaps, 
low  and  broken  lines  of  buildings,  so  that  Michael 
could  see  a  stretch  of  sky.  At  first  it  was  of  a  pearl- 
grey,  then  radiantly  primrose-coloured  :  then  the  pink 
began  to  flow  into  it,  with  cloudings  of  crimson,  with 
shinings  of  rose  that  was  almost  white.  Michael 
imagined  the  great  circle  of  which  this  was  a  segment, 
cut  off  clearly  by  the  dark  violet  buildings.  The  circle 
was  like  a  rose  with  rank  on  rank  of  petals,  the  colour 
mounting  from  the  purple  of  the  outermost,  through 
notes  of  brighter  and  brighter  pink,  till  it  reached  the 
gold-white  dazzle  of  the  heart.  And  in  this  intolerable 
splendour  God  was  hidden  :  all  the  petals  were,  as 
Dante  had  dreamed  and  Dore"  drawn,  composed  of  a 
great  crowd  of  winged  creatures  whose  happy  faces, 
unwaveringly  expectant,  were  bent  towards  the 
central  mystery,  the  heart  of  the  rose.  .  .  . 

When  Michael  began  to  feel  cold  he  got  back  into 
bed.  For  a  long  time  he  sat  with  his  hands  clasped 
round  his  knees.  His  tints  were  all  very  pure,  and 
the  light,  falling  full  on  him,  was  repelled  by  no  dead 
surfaces  :  nor  must  it  crawl  in  any  of  those  furrows 
which  are  the  gutters  of  cares  and  vices.  Yet  there 
was  a  suggestion  of  pathos  in  Michael's  appearance ; 


THE   COMING  49 

something  that  strong  people  found  attractive  and  the 
weak  majority  found  absurd  or  even  repellent.  Poised 
on  his  long  white  neck  his  face  seemed  a  rather  narrow 
oval.  The  eyes,  of  a  golden-brown  colour,  were  promi- 
nent, vivid,  with  a  hint  of  bluish  fullness  beneath 
them.  The  nose  was  short  and  straight,  the  mouth, 
large-lipped,  was  scarcely  closed.  The  chin  was 
rounded  and  cleft,  the  forehead  of  an  admirable 
breadth,  height,  and  placidity.  Michael's  hands  and 
figure  were  those  of  a  delicately  nurtured  young  man 
who  had  never  done  any  hard  work  nor  gone  in  for 
outdoor  games. 

Presently  he  turned  to  the  table  by  the  bedside. 
The  half-unfolded  rose  had  loosened  from  its  calyx 
and  dropped  :  it  lay,  still  in  one  crimson  cone,  on  the 
dark  wood  and  its  reflection  glowed  up  at  it.  Michael 
lifted  the  green  stem,  stared  for  a  moment  at  the  heart 
of  the  ruined  rose.  The  little  heart,  hidden  till  the 
time  of  unfolding  or  the  ravaging  of  ruin,  was  gold 
and  white  :  it  seemed  to  radiate  light :  it,  too,  was  a 
mystery  ;  in  it,  too,  God  was  hiding. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS 


THERE  was  no  butter  in  the  house. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  had  known  this  since  breakfast  time  : 
she  had  made  up  her  mind  then  that  they  would  just 
have  to  do  without  any  :  for  she  had  resolved  that  she 
would  never  again  buy  the  weekly  two  pounds  of 
butter  a  day  before  the  proper  time.  The  proper  time 
was  Saturday,  and  to-day  was  only  Friday.  Very 
well.  Let  them  suffer  for  having  used  too  much 
butter  :  let  them  learn  that  they  must  draw  in  their 
horns  ;  that  Mrs.  Trathbye  was  not  made  of  butter. 

At  breakfast  and  during  the  active  morning  hours 
Mrs.  Trathbye  was  able  to  treat  the  matter  with  a 
certain  lightness.  She  even  made  a  joke  to  Aunt 
Caroline  while  she  was  scalding  the  empty  butter- 
dish. But  in  the  afternoon  when  Drusilla  returned 
from  the  swimming-baths  she  despondently  noted  in 
her  mother  signs  of  ill-temper.  Mrs.  Trathbye  became 
jarringly  talkative  on  what  was  at  best  an  exhausted 
subject. 

No  butter  in  the  house  !  Not  even  a  morsel  of  jam, 
nor  a  bit  of  cheese,  nor  an  egg.  Mrs.  Trathbye  had 
given  the  last  egg  to  Kathleen,  poor  child,  at  break- 
fast :  she  was  doing  her  best  but  she  could  not  make 
the  eggs  last  the  week.  ...  It  would  not  have  been 
so  bad  if  the  bread  had  not  been  so  stale.  The  poor 
girls  would  soon  be  coming  in,  tired  and  hungry.  .  .  . 

"  It's  no  worse  for  them  than  for  ...  you  and 

50 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  51 

Aunt  Carlie,"  Drusilla  said,  faltering  on  an  inarticulate 
"  me." 

"  I  always  think  it's  harder  on  a  person  that's  been 
out  working,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said.  There  was  a 
weight  of  meaning  in  her  words,  and  Drusilla  turned 
away,  flushing. 

"  Ah  then,  I'm  not  saying  it  isn't  hard  enough  for  us 
all,  child,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  with  a  touch  of  con- 
trition. 

Drusilla  eagerly  hailed  it. 

"  Mother,"  she  said,  "  I  may  as  well  go  and  get  the 
butter  at  Ackroyd's.  Let  me  ?  I'll  go  before  I  take 
my  things  off." 

Mrs.  Trathbye  hesitated. 

"  What  difference  does  a  day  make  ?  "  Drusilla  said, 
too  urgent.  Mrs.  Trathbye  became  defensive,  sus- 
picious that  her  housekeeping  was  being  treated  as  an 
easy  thing  about  which  she  made  an  exaggerating  fuss. 
She  stuck  to  her  resolution  ;  and  the  effort  absorbing 
all  her  moral  force,  she  again  became  irresponsibly 
spiteful.  Drusilla  escaped. 

In  the  bedroom  the  girl  put  on  a  dressing-gown,  a 
faded  thing  but  of  a  beautiful  purplish-pink  colour  : 
she  let  down  her  hair,  damp  from  the  swimming-baths. 
Then  she  heard  her  sisters,  Essie  and  Kathleen,  come 
in,  and  again  she  rose  to  escape.  There  were  only 
two  bedrooms  in  the  Trathbyes'  flat  and  they  were 
little  narrow  places.  Drusilla  and  Essie  slept  in  this 
one,  Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Kathleen  in  the  other ;  while 
Aunt  Caroline,  who  liked  to  be  in  an  acknowledged 
discomfort,  had  a  folding-bed  in  the  parlour.  Drusilla 
knew  that  both  of  the  girls  would  come  in  here  to  take 
off  their  things  and  lay  them  on  chairs  or  on  the  bed  : 
she  knew  just  how  they  would  look  in  the  glass,  how 


52  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

they  would  glance  at  her,  how  they  would  pass  and  re- 
pass  her,  jostling  her  with  ostentatious  "  Excuse  me's  " 
with  a  wronged  air  of  having  been  out  earning  money 
and  of  finding  the  house  overcrowded  when  they  came 
home.  She  knew  that  they  would  look  shabby  and 
clumsy  in  their  cheap  boots  and  ready-made  costumes, 
and  that  Essie's  face  would  be  hot  and  shiny  and 
gritty.  If  she  spoke,  smiling,  they  would  not  try  to 
smile  :  they  might  not  answer  or  they  might  contra- 
dict. .  .  .  She  knew,  too,  that  there  was  a  conscious- 
ness that  would  flash  through  them  when  they  looked 
at  their  reflections  in  the  glass,  then  at  her  sitting 
there.  It  was  to  escape  from  the  presence  of  this 
thought  that  she  fled. 

She  went  into  the  kitchen  and  began  to  toast  slices 
of  the  elderly  white  bread.  Because  of  the  heat  Mrs. 
Trathbye  was  carrying  the  tea-things  into  the  parlour. 
The  open  doors  showed  the  faded  green  walls  and  the 
green  linoleum  on  the  floor,  the  half-soiled  cloth  on  the 
table,  the  mustard-and-cress  sponges  hanging  in  the 
oriel  window,  spots  of  vivid  translucent  green. 

Aunt  Caroline  was  at  the  kitchen  fireside,  seated  in 
an  old  rocking-chair,  writing  with  her  fountain-pen  on 
some  pages  torn  from  an  account  book.  She  earned 
a  little  money  by  doing  a  woman's  column  for  a 
Wicklow  paper. 

"  Am  I  in  your  way  ?  "  Drusilla  asked  with  a 
longing  for  humane  speech. 

Aunt  Caroline  did  not  reply. 

"  Am  I  in  your  way,  Aunt  Carlie  ?  "  Drusilla  asked 
more  crisply. 

"  I  don't  suppose  you  care  whether  you  are  or  not," 
Aunt  Carlie  said  morosely.  She  copied  a  statement 
about  skirts  from  a  London  paper  three  months  old, 


THE  IMPRISONED   PRINCESS  53 

then  began  to  recall  a  recipe.  "  Is  there  a  circumflex 
accent  on  '  cream  '  in  French  ?  "  she  asked  with  a 
sheepish  reluctance. 

"  A  grave  accent,  I  think,"  Drusilla  said. 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  "  Aunt  Caroline  said  with  a  resentful 
slant  of  her  head.  She  affected  to  meditate,  then 
said  :  "  I  think  I  shall  put  a  circumflex.  .  .  .  Why  are 
you  going  about  such  a  sight  with  your  hair  hanging 
down  ?  " 

Drusilla  heard  the  question  every  swimming-day. 

"  It's  damp,"  she  said.  "  I  was  at  the  baths  with 
Miss  Morland." 

"  H'm,"  Aunt  Caroline  uttered  :  she  made  a  ridi- 
culous little  motion  of  her  shoulders,  intended  for  a 
shrug,  implying  doubts  of  Miss  Morland. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  came  into  the  kitchen  :  she  looked 
at  the  fire-lit  hah*  and  said  with  a  mingling  of  rebuke 
and  derision  : 

"  Take  care  you  don't  put  any  hairs  in  among  the 
toast.  It  would  be  an  improvement  if  you  fastened 
up  your  hair  when  you're  going  where  there's  food." 

"  It's  tied  with  a  ribbon,"  Drusilla  said  coldly. 

Then  Essie  came  in. 

"  Have  you  been  washing  your  hair  ?  "  she  asked 
with  an  obvious  assumption  of  surprise. 

Drusilla  stood  up,  the  plate  of  toast  in  her  hand. 

"  Now  !  "  she  said,  with  a  defiant  cheerfulness.  She 
drew  in  a  deep  breath  of  air,  expelled  it,  throwing  back 
her  head  with  a  laughing  mockery.  She  flung  her 
beauty  in  the  faces  of  these  three  hostile  women.  She 
pulled  off  the  ribbon  and  her  hair  streamed,  fire- 
illumined,  red-brown  and  golden,  curling,  over  her 
broad  shoulders  :  she  put  one  hand  behind  her  to 
catch  the  ends  of  the  tresses  and  show  that  they  fell 


54  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

far  below  the  girdle  of  the  old  gown.  Drusilla's  cheeks 
were  petal-like  in  their  bright  pinkness  flowing  into 
whiteness. 

For  a  moment  the  three  women  looked  at  her ; 
Aunt  Caroline  stupidly  malign,  Essie  angry ;  Mrs. 
Trathbye  with  a  bright  startled  look  of  sympathy. 
Then  the  mother  said  : 

"  Come  in  to  tea,  children,  such  as  it  is.  Essie, 
don't  be  wearing  that  dreadful  '  No  butter  '  face." 

Mrs.  Trathbye  began  to  laugh  ;  and,  laughing,  she 
was  a  charming  woman,  sweet,  witty,  and  handsome. 

It  was  just  that  lovable  laugh  of  her  mother's  that 
made  Drusilla  feel  guilty  because  she  had  arranged  to 
go  secretly  that  evening  to  Miss  Morland's  gymnastic 
class.  If  her  mother  had  continued  to  be  unpleasant 
Drusilla  would  have  had  the  indemnifying  sense  of 
being  driven  into  silence.  But  Mrs.  Trathbye's  gaiety 
lasted  during  the  meal  of  tea  and  dry  toast :  she 
mocked  the  despondent  Essie  and  Kathleen  and  made 
jokes  about  Aunt  Caroline's  long  lean  neck  rising 
from  a  collarless  red  blouse. 

"  You're  just  like  a  hen  at  the  poulterer's,  Carlie," 
Mrs.  Trathbye  said.  "  Look  at  my  beautiful  neck." 
She  put  a  hand  on  either  side  of  her  neck,  turning  her 
head  quaintly.  "  Not  one  of  you  girls  has  a  neck  like 
mine,"  she  said,  her  eyes  passing  Kathleen  and  Essie, 
glancing  to  Drusilla — "  Nor  a  figure  like  mine."  She 
drew  down  her  hands,  over  the  baggy  black  silk  blouse 
that  she  wore,  defining  her  wasted  shape. 

"  No,"  Drusilla  said  with  a  gentleness  of  pity.  It 
was  as  if  the  young  woman  that  Mrs.  Trathbye  had 
been  looked  suddenly  out  of  the  past,  pleading  to  be 
remembered,  pleading  her  right  to  a  place  by  Drusilla's 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  55 

side  and  a  heart  beating  in  unison  with  hers,  pleading 
forgetfulness  of  the  long,  careworn  years  each  like  a 
layer  of  earth  on  the  grave  of  her  beauty.  .  .  . 

After  tea  Essie  pulled  out  the  sewing-machine  and 
began  to  work  it.  Aunt  Caroline,  with  her  passion  for 
martyrdom,  sat  in  the  darkest  corner  of  the  draughty 
side  of  the  room,  writing  her  woman's  column,  holding 
the  ragged  account-book  page  on  the  cover  of  a  book. 
Kathleen,  who  still  wore  her  hair  in  a  looped-up  plait 
set  with  a  big  bow,  was  going  about  the  room,  search- 
ing in  corners  and  opening  and  shutting  the  bookcase 
and  cupboards. 

"  Dillie,  where  on  earth  did  you  put  that  library 
book  ?  " 

"  Nowhere.  I  never  saw  it,"  Drusilla  said,  quickly 
on  the  defensive. 

"  Rubbish.  .  .  .  You  must  have  put  it  somewhere. 
It  would  be  more  good-natured  of  you  to  say  instead 
of  keeping  me  poking  about  looking  for  it.  I  can't 
have  all  day  to  read  the  way  you  have.  .  .  ." 

"  Ah,  can't  you  tell  her  where  you've  put  the  book  ?  " 
Aunt  Caroline  said,  raising  her  head.  "  It  isn't  very 
easy  for  a  person  to  write  and  she  going  on  like  that." 

"  As  if  I'd  hidden  the  book  !  "  Drusilla  said,  tears 
leaping  to  her  eyes.  "  I  believe  you  took  it  out  with 
you  and  left  it  at  the  office." 

"  I  didn't,"  Kathleen  said.  "  I'm  sure  I  didn't," 
she  repeated  with  a  quiver  of  doubt.  Her  office  was 
a  very  quiet  one  ;  she  spent  hours  daily  sewing  or 
reading,  and  was  constantly  carrying  magazines  and 
books  to  and  fro.  "  I  don't  get  so  much  time  for 
reading,  I'm  sure,"  she  muttered  to  cover  her  retreat, 
as  she  resigned  herself  to  sitting  down  with  an  old 
number  of  The  Lady's  Circle. 


56  THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Drusilla  went  into  the  kitchen,  where  Mrs.  Trathbye 
was  hauling  up  a  squealing  pulley  from  which  dangled 
a  row  of  stockings. 

"  Mother,  let  me  do  the  tea-things,"  Drusilla  said  ; 
and  the  expected  reply  came  : 

"  Ah,  I'll  do  them  in  half  the  time  myself." 

Drusilla  went  into  the  bedroom  to  put  on  her  coat 
and  hat.  Her  gymnastic  costume,  acquired  by  many 
economies  and  deceptions,  lay  concealed  at  Miss  Mor- 
land's  house,  whither  she  was  going  under  pretext  of 
a  mere  social  evening.  .  .  .  Well,  supposing  she  were 
acting  falsely  !  She  said  it  to  herself  in  a  passion  of 
desolate  disgust.  A  lie  was  less  demoralising  than  a 
train  of  little  fizzlings,  naggings,  jeerings,  offences. 
As  she  closed  the  door  of  the  little  flat,  she  said  to 
herself,  with  a  sense  of  wasted  brilliance,  that  her 
home,  full  of  competing  women,  was  like  a  harem 
without  its  material  luxury. 


II 

Grace  Morland  was  lodged  in  two  big  rooms  in  a 
big,  dark-grey,  decadent  house,  one  of  a  terrace  in  the 
west  of  Glasgow.  The  trees  in  front  of  it,  dusty  and 
already  black-green,  moved  slowly  in  the  rising  wind. 
There  was  a  sunken  carriage-step  before  each  door  and 
the  exuberantly  designed  iron  railings,  protecting  a 
few  feet  of  paved  area,  were  broken  into  an  outline 
almost  like  one  of  Nature's.  A  little  surprised-looking 
maid  guided  Drusilla  to  Miss  Morland' s  room. 

"  Oh,  it's  you — you're  looking  first-rate  too,"  Grace 
said.  "  Find  a  chair — take  the  basket  one,  do  ! 
Take  off  your  things.  We've  time  to  have  a  cig.  and 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  57 

a  comfy  chat  before  we  start.  That's  to  say  I  suppose 
I'll  have  the  cig.  and  we'll  both  have  the  chat." 

Miss  Morland  spoke  very  loudly.  Clad  in  her  gym- 
nastic costume  she  lay  down  in  her  deck-chair  while 
Drusilla  sat  on  a  little  stool  opposite  to  her.  The  big 
room  was  tireless  and  growing  dark,  so  that  the  little 
red  pulse  of  Miss  Morland's  cigarette  seemed  a  thing 
very  vital.  The  wind  mourned  in  the  chimney  :  the 
room  was  heavily  furnished  and  the  old-fashioned 
mirror  above  the  chimney-piece  reflected  the  dull 
silvers  and  black-greys  of  the  storm-boding  sky.  But 
Drusilla  had  a  happy  sense  of  adventure. 

Miss  Morland  looked  at  her  ;  and,  with  a  subtle 
suggestion  of  defiance  in  her  voice,  asked  : 

"  I  say,  how  do  you  like  me  in  this  costume  ?  " 
She  stretched  out  her  limbs,  which  were  long  and 
shapely. 

"  I've  seen  it  before,"  Drusilla  said,  surprised.  "  It 
suits  you  very  well,"  she  added  deferentially. 

"  Doesn't  it  ?  "  Miss  Morland  said.  "  Isn't  it  a  pity 
women  can't  always  go  about  like  this  ?  Think  how 
free  we'd  be  !  ...  It's  coming,  of  course." 

"  I  like  skirts,"  Drusilla  ventured,  looking  at  her 
doubtfully. 

"  Oh,  well,  for  indoors.  Men  like  them I 

never  saw  such  a  feminine  person  as  you,"  Miss  Mor- 
land said,  suddenly  indignant. 

It  occurred  to  Drusilla  that  she  herself  had  said 
nothing  about  men  ;  that  she  had  not  thought  of 

men Another  thing  that  struck  her  was  Grace 

Morland's  habit  of  deliberately  substituting  the  word 
"  person  "  for  "  girl  "  when  she  referred  to  any  woman 
who  was  young.  The  fact  that  Miss  Morland  obviously 
said  "  girl  "  naturally,  and  "  person  "  with  intention, 


58  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

proved  that  she  must  think  of  Drusilla  as  a  girl.  It 
would  have  dismayed  Drusilla  to  believe  that  she 
could  really  appear  as  a  person  to  any  one.  Yet  why 
should  Miss  Morland  show  this  grudgingness  in  the 
use  of  the  word  "  girl  "  in  Drusilla's  case,  especially 
as  she  applied  it  freely  to  women  who  were  her  own 
contemporaries  and  plainly  Drusilla's  seniors  .  .  .  ? 
Drusilla  mused,  feeling  worried. 

"  My  dear,  I  was  amused  about  your  costume," 
Miss  Morland  said.  "  When  you  sent  me  that  p.c. 
asking  me  to  receive  it  here  I  thought  I'd  have  a  fit !  " 

"  The  truth  is,  Mother  doesn't  know  I've  joined  your 
class,"  Drusilla  said,  vividly  blushing  and  trying  to 
laugh. 

"  My  dear,  of  course  I  guessed  that,"  Miss  Morland 
chuckled.  "  The  old  lady  would  be  shocked  ?  " 

"  And  Aunt  Carlie  and  the  girls  would  make  a  fuss," 
Drusilla  said.  ..."  Mother  isn't  old  :  she's  very 
good-looking.  .  .  .  It's  not  exactly  that  they'd  be 
shocked  :  but  they — you'd  need  to  live  in  our  house 
to  know  how  they  oppose  things — without  any  reason, 
just  because  I  suggest  them.  ...  I  think  it's  just  a 
kind  of  habit  from  always  having  been  kept  living  so 
close  together.  I  don't  believe  Aunt  Carlie,  especially, 
knows  when  she's  contradicting.  And  mother  thinks 
you  don't  need  anything — never  to  do  anything  or  go 
anywhere.  ...  I  suppose  I'm  a  coward,  but  what's 
the  use  of  always  having  horrible  little  fusses  ?  " 
Dejection  had  fallen  upon  her :  her  bright  sense  of 
adventure  was  quenched  in  shame.  Seated  on  the 
little  stool,  she  seemed  like  a  child  who  gets  hurt  at 
the  beginning  of  a  day's  pleasuring. 

"  Never  mind,  kiddie,"  Miss  Morland  said  kindly. 
The  words  were  out  before  she  realised  their  motherly 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  59 

tone,  and  she  made  as  it  were  a  clutch  at  their  escaping 
forms.  "  A  person  has  surely  a  right  to  take  her 
pleasures  as  she  chooses,"  she  said.  "  A  grown-up 
man  wouldn't  dream  of  being  in  subjection  in  these 
matters.  Why  should  a  woman  ?  " 

Drusilla  was  on  the  point  of  saying  something  about 
the  expense  :  she  stopped,  again  blushing,  remember- 
ing how  indelicate  this  would  be  to  Miss  Morland, 
who  received  the  fees. 

"  Do  you  think  it's  wrong  to  do  it  in  secret  ?  "  she 
asked. 

Miss  Morland  was  again  surprised  into  looking 
touched,  but  recollected  her  policy  towards  Drusilla. 

"  How  do  I  know  any  better  than  yourself  ?  " 

"  Well,  of  course,  you  know  more.  .  .  ."  Drusilla 
looked  downcast.  Miss  Morland  was  not  turning  out 
as  she  had  hoped.  For  years  Drusilla  had  been  hoping 
— always  with  a  tinge  of  doubt — for  the  coming  of  the 
Woman  Friend  of  whom  one  read  in  books.  She  was 
at  once  the  background  and  the  support  of  the 
Beautiful  Girl,  this  Woman  Friend ;  a  creature  not 
of  necessity  physically  fan*,  but  gracious,  cultured, 
sincere.  She  was  a  certain  number  of  years — say, 
eight  to  sixteen  years — older  than  the  Beautiful  Girl, 
so  that  no  sense  of  rivalry  should  defile  the  girl's 
worship  of  her  social  calm,  the  girl's  acceptance  of  her 
moral  and  aesthetic  dogmas.  The  Woman  Friend  had 
an  exquisite  selflessness — an  opening  of  all  her  heart 
for  the  inpouring  of  one's  sorrows  :  she  had  no  per- 
sonal moods.  The  illusion  that  she  was  playing  the 
principal  part  was  not  hers  :  she  stood  with  her  gaze 
on  the  young  friend  in  the  fullness  of  the  light.  She 
had  humour  and  taught  one  how  to  smile  at  bitter 
things.  And  her  sweet  wisdom,  the  quietening  of  her 


60  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

pulses,  were  the  results  of  something  that  had  hap- 
pened to  her  in  the  past — something  that  one  surmised 
now  and  then  when  her  sympathy  grew  so  tender 
that  it  was  almost  sad.  .  .  . 

Something  with  a  man  in  it.  His  voice  broke 
bidding  her  farewell,  his  eyes  overflowed,  his  hand 
shook.  .  .  . 

Drusilla  had  gone  dreaming  of  this  self-possessed, 
self-oblivious  Woman  Friend,  experienced  yet  un- 
contaminated,  enthusiastic  without  egotism ;  and, 
twice,  had  thought  that  she  had  found  her.  Now  she 
feared  that  Miss  Morland  was  going  to  be  another 
disappointment.  Grace  had  interested  her  at  their 
first  meeting  at  the  baths  a  year  ago  :  they  had  had 
many  long  talks  in  the  cooling-room,  lying  on  the  red- 
and-white-striped  couches  in  a  laziness  that  felt  itself 
pleasantly  justified.  True,  Drusilla  had  noticed, 
almost  at  the  beginning,  that  Miss  Morland  had  some 
personal  vanities  and  insincerities  not  to  be  found  in 
the  ideal  Woman  Friend  of  the  mild  novel.  For 
example,  Miss  Morland's  suggestion  of  her  skill  in 
swimming,  given  while  she  was  lying  on  the  couch, 
was  not  carried  out  by  her  actual  performance  in  the 
pond ;  and  Drusilla's  knowledge  of  this  wakened  a 
kind  of  uneasiness  as  she  listened  to  Miss  Morland 
talking  about  her  tennis,  her  hill-climbing,  the  poems 
she  had  made,  and  the  tributes  of  various  responsible 
persons  to  her  elocutionary  powers.  Of  her  Swedish 
gymnastics  and  dancing  Drusilla  had  as  yet  no  doubt : 
for  she  knew  that  Miss  Morland  had  given  up  teaching 
languages  to  go  in  for  gymnastics  as  a  profession  ;  and 
Drusilla  had  an  ignorant,  awed  respect  for  things  done 
professionally,  and  particularly  for  the  earning  of 
money. 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  61 

Miss  Morland  had  encouraged  her  to  read  ;  declaring 
herself  amused  that  a  person  should  have  read  so  little 
and  should  avoid  books  that  her  mother  found  im- 
proper. If  a  person  couldn't  decide  for  herself ! 

Miss  Morland  lent  books — iconoclastic  little  paper 
pamphlets  which  said  that  there  should  be  no  Church, 
and  that  kings,  from  the  beginning  of  history,  had 
been  rascals  ;  problem  novels  ;  Woman  Suffrage  and 
Food  Reform  magazines  ;  books  on  mental  thera- 
peutics and  spiritualism.  All  these  Drusilla  read  in 
secret  with  a  leaping  heart,  with  an  exquisite  sense  of 
law-breaking.  It  needed  only  a  little  reading  to  show 
her  that  Miss  Morland  had  merely  rushed  past  all  these 
subjects  of  which  she  only  half  consciously  feigned  a 
knowledge ;  but  because  Drusilla  was  timid  and 
humble,  with  an  aching  sense  of  her  own  ignorance, 
she  remained  in  the  position  of  a  disciple  and  was 
actually  learning  something  from  Miss  Morland. 
There  was  much  to  love  in  the  woman  ;  especially  a 
brusque  protectiveness  which  was  her  natural  attitude 
towards  Drusilla.  If  she  had  let  it  have  its  way  who 
knows  how  near  their  relationship  might  have  come 
to  an  ideal  friendship  between  a  younger  woman 
and  an  elder  ?  But  sex  rivalry  came  to  vitiate  it : 
Miss  Morland  struggled  against  the  motherliness 
which  would  have  cherished  Drusilla,  beautiful 
and  softly  helpless :  Grace  persisted  in  the  assump- 
tion that  they  stood  at  the  same  stage  of  develop- 
ment. She  did  not  pretend  that  she  was  as  young 
as  Drusilla,  but  feigned  to  feel  that  Drusilla  was  as 
old  as  she. 

"  I'll  go  now  and  put  on  my  gymnastic  costume," 
Drusilla  said. 

"  Yes,  do.  ...  What  a  prim  way  you  have  of 


62  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

speaking !  "  Miss  Morland  said  with  her  amused  air. 
"  Why  don't  you  say  '  gym.'  ?  " 

Brasilia  coloured,  a  little  resentful,  and  went  in 
silence.  Grace  began  to  do  a  stooping  exercise  with 
a  waste-paper  basket  loaded  with  books  ;  inhaling  as 
she  raised  the  basket  above  her  head,  exhaling  as  she 
lowered  it.  ...  Drusilla  danced  in  blushing  and 
laughing,  in  her  blue  tunic  and  long  stockings.  She 
stood  in  front  of  Grace,  fidgeting  with  a  sparkling 
gaucherie  altogether  charming,  bowed,  and  spread 
out  the  scant  skirts  of  her  tunic. 

"  Don't  I  look  lovely  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  .  .  .  It  shortens  you  very  much,"  Miss  Morland 
said,  with  the  startled  sense,  which  came  to  many 
people  sooner  or  later,  of  how  lovely  Drusilla  looked. 
"...  But  it's  very  becoming,"  she  added,  in 
an  emollient  tone.  "  Get  on  your  coat  and  we'll 

go." 

At  the  gymnastic  class  Drusilla  was  radiantly  in 
earnest ;  wondering  at  the  things  that  Miss  Morland 
and  the  other  girls  could  do,  trying,  with  crimsoning 
cheeks,  to  leap  and  swing  as  they  did ;  playing 
hopping  and  ball-throwing  games  with  a  child's 
seriousness. 

"  I  didn't  get  enough  of  fun  when  I  was  a  little 
girl,"  Drusilla  said,  after  the  last  exercises,  looking 
into  Miss  Morland's  eyes,  which,  at  the  sight  of  her 
awkwardness,  had  become  wholly  friendly. 

"  Didn't  you  ?  "  Miss  Morland  said.  "  I  had  a  very 

happy  childhood — I  was  always  a  dreadful  pickle " 

She  broke  off  and,  loudly  clapping  her  hands,  called 
to  the  girls  to  wind  up  with  a  dance.  But  Drusilla 
already  knew  the  stories  of  Miss  Morland's  childhood 
in  her  father's  big  country  house  in  Lancashire — the 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  68 

sort  of  childhood,  Drusilla  had  often  thought,  that 
one  read  about  in  books. 

Miss  Morland  played  noisily  and  haltingly,  breaking 
down  every  now  and  then.  The  girls,  in  their  blue 
and  white,  hopped  and  slid  irregularly  about  the  long 
bare  room,  airy  and  pallidly  tinted.  Then  they  all 
crowded  into  the  cloak-room,  where  there  was  a 
plunging  into  skirts,  a  changing  of  shoes,  a  riot  of 
laughter  and  talk.  Drusilla  listened,  in  a  wistful 
interest,  for  a  time  :  then  she  managed  to  get  into 
conversation  with  two  girls.  .  .  . 

One  of  them  was  already  looking  at  her  in  that  way. 
The  look  fell  blightingly  on  the  bloom  of  her  happiness. 
.  .  .  She  tried  to  get  to  the  glass  and  peeped  over 
heads  and  shoulders  at  her  reflection,  rose-cheeked 
and  red-haired. 

"  I  say  !  "  Miss  Morland  said.  (Almost  everything 
that  Miss  Morland  said  was  prefaced  by  that 
unnecessary  statement :  "I  say  !  ")  "  Are  you 
ready  ?  " 

They  went  out,  scurrying  across  the  asphalt  play- 
ground. The  school  in  which  Miss  Morland  held  her 
evening  classes  was  in  a  poor  semi-respectable  part  of 
the  east  of  the  city — a  place  of  remnant-shops  and 
pawnbrokers,  of  fried-fish  shops,  of  littered  closes  and 
streets,  of  a  surplus  of  little  children  with  dirty  faces, 
foul  mouths,  and  innocent  eyes.  A  large  percentage 
of  the  population  was  Irish,  and  their  names  of  Quinn, 
MacNulty,  O'Brien,  and  the  rest  shone  over  their 
shops  and  public-houses  while  their  children  on  the 
pavements  spoke  a  mongrel  language. 

As  the  two  girls  went  by,  the  young  men,  grouped 
at  the  corners,  uttered  chaff  :  their  eyes  passed  Grace 
to  dwell  on  Drusilla' s  rosiness ;  and  the  more  gifted 


64  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

of  them  saluted  her  with  such  phrases  as  :  "  Hullo, 
wee  Jeanie  !  "  or  "  Cherry  Ripe  !  " 

"  I  say  !  "  Miss  Morland  said,  suddenly  stopping  in 
her  long-stepped,  stooping  walk.  "  I  say — I  wonder 
would  you  mind  ?  I  want  to  go  up  to  Michael  Quen- 
tin's  club-rooms  in  Groome  Street  with  a  message. 
I  say,  I  wonder  would  you  mind  ?  I'd  thought  of 
going  up  to-morrow,  but  to-night  we're  so  close  to  the 
place.  .  .  .  Perhaps  we'd  better  just  take  that  car  ?  " 
Miss  Morland  began  to  run  towards  the  car  station, 
stopped,  looked  questioningly  at  Drusilla ;  began  to 
run  again  and  replied  to  a  gesture  of  the  guard's  ; 
then  stopped. 

"  It's  a  pity  not  just  to  go  up  when  we're  so  near." 

The  guard  made  a  motion  of  inquiry  :  then  all  the 
lines  of  his  face  and  figure  seemed  to  drop  downwards 
in  disgust — and  he  violently  rang  his  bell.  The  car 
moved  on  and  Miss  Morland,  after  a  vague  little  run 
in  its  wake,  turned  and  strode  up  a  side  street. 

"  We'll  just  go — better  just  to  go  and  get  it  over," 
she  said  to  Drusilla,  scurrying  along  beside  her.  "  I 
always  believe  in  knowing  what  you  want  to  do  and 
doing  a  thing  right  away." 

Groome  Street,  narrow,  with  yellow  flares  of  light 
and  black  shadows,  full  of  people,  of  fruit-barrows  and 
hot  potato  machines,  gave  an  impression  of  brawling 
life.  Men  and  boys  wearing  green  tweed  caps  and 
women  in  tartan  or  fawn-coloured  shawls  debouched 
from  the  public-houses  ;  for  it  was  almost  closing  time. 

"  I  say,  you  don't  mind  running  a  little,  do  you  ?  " 
Miss  Morland  panted.  "  They  usually  go  on  till  quite 
ten,  but  Michael  Quentin  may  be  gone."  .  .  .  Miss 
Morland  was  in  a  breathless  state  and  could  not  keep 
up  with  Drusilla. 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  65 

"  That's  a  thing  I'm  not  good  at.  I  don't  know  how 
it  is.  Anything  else  in  the  athletic  line.  .  .  ." 

They  entered  a  close  and  mounted  hollow-stepped 
stairs.  People  coming  down  passed  them.  On  the 
first  landing  an  open  doorway  flooded  out  light  and 
odours  of  lemonade  and  bananas  :  within  there  was  a 
jabber  of  voices,  the  sound  of  a  banjo  hopping  along 
to  an  ambling  pianoforte  accompaniment.  A  man 
began  to  sing : 

"  What  is  it  sets  you  a-dreaming,  a-dreaming, 
Under  the  moon — under  the  moon — 
When  the  yellow  gals  on  the  floor  of  the  barn 
Are  dancing  in  tune,  dancing  in  tune — 
And  each  of  them  dear  little  yellow  gals 
In  the  arms  of  a  coon  !  " 

A  number  of  voices  repeated  appreciatively :  "A 
coon  !  "  and  there  was  an  outbreak  of  laughter  and 
applause.  Drusilla  held  Grace's  arm  to  stay  her,  and 
they  stood  and  listened. 

To  Drusilla  the  whole  incident  was  an  exquisite 
adventure.  She  felt  admiration  for  Miss  Morland, 
who  carelessly  went  here  and  there  in  the  city — even 
at  ten  o'clock  ! — calling  on  men,  not  even  in  houses, 
but  in  strange  places  such  as  offices,  studios,  and  club- 
rooms.  The  nearness  of  a  crowd  always  excited 
Drusilla  ;  especially  when  the  crowd  was  made  up  of 
people  whose  lives  were  strange  to  her ;  and  as  the 
great  mass  of  the  city  lay  unknown  around  her, 
romance  pulsed  for  her  in  the  blocks  of  buildings  and 
the  silent  comings  and  goings  of  the  streets.  Now  she 
was  wrought  upon  by  the  male  voice  singing  alone, 
by  the  volume  of  sound  when  the  audience  all  shouted 

E 


66  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

together.  When  the  song  was  ended  and  Grace  led 
her  into  the  room,  Drusilla's  face  was  alight  with  these 
emotions  ;  and  it  kept  the  heightened  hues  of  the 
gymnastics  and  the  rush  through  the  damp  windy 
night. 

Thus  she  came  before  Michael's  eyes.  He  himself 
never  doubted  that  it  was  the  will  of  God.  Nothing 
was  more  apparent  to  him  than  that  she  was  the  work 
of  God ;  that  God  had  fashioned  her  with  the  same 
love  as  he  used  in  the  making  of  a  flower.  As  she 
stood  by  Grace — who  was  talking  to  Racie  Moore — it 
seemed  to  Michael  that  the  faces  and  forms  about 
her  were  blurred  into  a  mass,  so  that  she  shone  out 
like  a  single  rose  blooming  in  a  desolated  garden.  .  .  . 
Michael,  staring,  came  slowly  down  the  room  ;  almost 
in  fear  that  the  nearer  he  came  the  more  would  she 
fade  from  the  bright  fulfilment  of  his  ideal. 

But  the  nearer  he  came  the  more  beautiful  he  saw 
her.  Miss  Morland  introduced  him  and  he  stood  silent 
while  Racie  spoke  a  little.  No  use  in  Racie  glancing 
at  him  with  that  eye-corner  look  of  his  which  hinted  : 
"  Better  say  something.  Better  not  stare  at  the  girl." 
Michael  knew  that  he  had  a  right  to  look  and  that 
speech  was  unnecessary.  .  .  .  Her  cheeks  were  like 
the  petals  of  a  wild  rose,  the  clear  vivid  pink  washing 
into  a  white  as  clear.  Her  mouth — oh,  the  simile  had 
been  done  to  death,  but  to  what  but  a  cherry  could  you 
liken  a  mouth  lipped  so  fully  and  silkenly,  so  redly 
coloured,  so  soft  and  small  ?  Her  eyes  had  the  red- 
brown  tints  of  rose-tree  twigs  and  thorns.  Her  red 
hair  was  a  wonderful  criss-cross  of  brights  and  darks 
under  her  wide- brimmed  hat ;  hair  so  beautifully 
negligent  in  its  puffing  and  piling  that  in  an  instant 
Michael  knew  just  how,  loosened,  it  would  stream  and 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  67 

fall.  He  knew,  too,  that  it  was  chiefly  from  it  that 
there  came  a  sweetness  that  was  like  the  breath  of  a 
rose. 

Miss  Morland,  in  a  slow  kind  of  shout,  opened  her 
business  with  Michael ;  and  while  she  was  talking  to 
him,  Racie  answered  Drusilla's  shy  questions  about 
the  Eire  Club.  It  was  interesting  to  see  the  actual 
bare-floored  room  where  Michael  Quentin  was  trying 
to  get  into  touch  with  his  poor  country-people  ;  and 
to  see  the  poor  country-people  larking  about  among 
the  bare  benches,  eating  stray  bananas  and  oranges, 
drinking  lemonade,  lighting  pipes  and  cigarettes, 
winding  mufflers  and  shawls  about  themselves  and 
their  children,  trudging  to  the  door  with  :  "  Good 
night,  then,  Mr.  Quentin.  Good  night,  Mr.  Moore." 

Drusilla  was  not  intimate  with  any  young  man  : 
she  had  a  brother  and  several  cousins  in  Ireland  ;  and, 
at  the  dancing-class  which  she  had  attended  some  years 
earlier  with  Essie  and  Kathleen,  she  had  become 
fleetingly  familiar  with  two  or  three  boys  of  her  own 
age.  But  the  Trathbyes'  house  was  pre-eminently  a 
feminine  household,  and  any  relationship  with  men 
did  not  go  past  shy  gratified  beginnings.  Drusilla 
was  vivified  by  the  thought  that  Michael  and  Racie 
were  both  young  well-dressed  nice  men.  Their 
quietude  was  emphasised  by  the  roughness  of  the  poor 
fellow-countrymen  and  by  Miss  Morland's  bawling 
speech,  the  jolting,  jerking  vivacity  which  she  prac- 
tised to Why  did  Grace  practise  a  jolting, 

jerking  vivacity  ?  Drusilla  put  the  question  aside  for 
later  asking. 

"  Then  you  are  interested  in  Celtic  literature, 
Miss  Trathbye  ?  "  Racie  was  asking  with  his  faint 
smile. 


68  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Drusilla  told  him  of  some  of  the  things  that  she  had 
read,  and  that  she  was  Irish  too. 

"  So  I  was  afraid,"  Racie  said.  "  Afraid  for  your 
own  sake,  I  mean.  It's  a  frightful  misfortune.  Mr. 
Quentin  enjoys  it  because  he's  only  half  Irish  :  he  has 
an  absurd  notion  of  Ireland  that  he  got  in  his  child- 
hood from  affected  Celtic  dramas  and  tales.  He's 
been  to  Ireland,  of  course  ;  but  landing  at  Belfast  in 
a  drizzle  and  being  cheated  at  dirty  Western  inns 
makes  no  difference  to  a  man  who's  an  illusionist :  he 
keeps  the  dream  and  defies  the  reality.  .  .  .  Not  that 
it  matters  much.  Anything  does  as  an  outlet  for 
romance  and  it's  romance  that's  the  essential  part  of 
him,  not  Irishism — or  is  it  Irishness  or  Ire  ?  ...  If  it 
hadn't  been  the  Celtic  Renaissance,  it  would  have  been 
a  scheme  to  make  Scotland  truly  national  by  thatching 
all  the  roofs  with  porridge  ;  or  an  effort  to  arouse  the 
American  Indians  to  drive  out  the  invaders  with  their 
coloured  quills  and  impassioned  poems  ;  or  he  might 
have  written  a  book  about  the  play  of  colours  on 
icebergs  and  the  moral  effects  on  the  Laplanders. 
Poor  old  Ireland  just  happened  to  be  the  flower  on 
which  the  bee  from  his  bonnet  has  settled  for  the 
time." 

"  You  are  an  Irishman,  aren't  you  ?  "  Drusilla  asked. 

"  Dublin,"  Racie  said,  suddenly  grave,  with  a  touch 
of  pride.  "  I  went  in  for  *  literature.'  I  got  a  posi- 
tion on  The  Glasgow  Evening  Mercury  by  answering 
an  advertisement.  The  puzzle  is  to  find  the  connec- 
tion between  Literature  and  the  Mercury." 

He  drawled  with  a  weary  air,  and  Drusilla,  intrigued 
by  his  inexpressive  face,  stood,  a  smile  hesitating  on 
her  lips.  She  was  aware  that  Grace,  getting  into  con- 
versation with  a  woman  and  child,  had  parted  from 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  69 

Michael,  who  had  drawn  nearer  to  Racie.  She  noticed 
the  brightness  of  Michael's  smile  to  his  friend. 

Racie's  fear  was  that  Michael  would  ask  Miss 
Trathbye  to  come  to  the  meetings  of  the  Eire  Club  : 
he  went  on,  chaffing,  trying  to  prevent  an  exhibition 
of  Michael's  ridiculous  earnestness. 

"  Patriotism  does  as  well  as  any  other  illusion, 
especially  when  one's  away  from  home.  I  know  a 
fellow  who  has  a  very  high  ideal  of  filial  duty  :  it's 
because  he's  an  orphan." 

"  Don't  mind  him,  Miss  Trathbye,"  Michael  said, 
astonished  at  his  own  ease  in  addressing  her.  "  He'll 
have  it  that  no  real  Irishman  has  faith  in  Ireland." 

"  Well,  my  mother's  a  real  Irishwoman,"  Drusilla 
said  in  her  shy  childish  way  of  speaking.  "  And  she's 
always  saying  that  everything  in  Ireland  is  better  and 
nicer  than  here." 

"  May  I  ask  how  long  your  mother  has  lived  out  of 
Ireland  ?  "  Racie  said. 

"  Oh,  a  long  time — nearly  all  my  life,"  Drusilla  told 
him. 

"  Ah  !  "  Racie  said. 

Drusilla,  flushing,  laughed  ;  and  Michael  Quentin, 
saying  again :  "  Don't  mind  him,"  laughed  too.  There 
came  to  him  moods  of  joy,  of  a  confidence  in  life 
as  a  triumph  of  friendship,  of  youth  and  banter,  of 
shared  enthusiasms. 

The  hall  was  nearly  empty  now,  and  they  were 
moving  to  the  door  :  in  her  embarrassment,  troubled 
by  the  sphinx-like  calm  of  Racie's  face,  the  girl  drifted 
towards  Michael. 

"  Mrs.  MacNulty  has  a  lot  to  say  to  Miss  Morland, 
surely,"  Racie  said  with  the  throaty  utterance  that 
sometimes  took  him  unawares. 


70  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  Oh,  Miss  Morland  takes  a  great  interest  in  that 
kid,"  Michael  said.  "  She's  very  fond  of  children — 
isn't  she,  Miss  Trathbye  ?  " 

Drusilla  was  not  fond  of  children  :  she  felt  vaguely 
that  Michael  might  consider  the  love  of  them  an  ideal 
attribute. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "  We  haven't  been  friends 
very  long."  She  wondered  why  Michael  looked  pleased ; 
then  wondered  why  she  had  felt  a  wish  to  be  regarded 
as  Miss  Trathbye  rather  than  as  Miss  Morland's  friend. 

"  The  kid's  an  orphan,"  Racie  put  in  in  his  quiet 
voice.  "  Miss  Morland  has  been  very  kind  to  him. 
She's  awfully  kind,  Miss  Morland." 

"  Awfully  kind,"  Michael  repeated. 

"  Very  generous,"  Racie  said. 

Did  these  young  men  quite  like  Grace  ?  .  .  .  Did 

she  herself  quite ?  Drusilla  gazed  at  the  group 

of  three — the  wide-mouthed  woman,  shawled,  the 
brown-haired  boy  of  five,  Miss  Morland,  tall,  in  her 
loose  grey  coat,  a  green  woollen  cap  on  the  black  hair 
which  was  already  lined  with  grey.  She  was  saying 
good  night  to  the  woman  and  child  now;  and  suddenly 
she  caught  the  boy  in  her  arms  and  held  him  close 
with  his  face  hidden  in  her  neck.  .  .  .  Leaving  the 
hall,  she  turned  to  wave  to  the  shawled  woman  and 
her  gaze  lingered.  .  .  .  Grace  had  fine  eyes,  with 
irises  of  an  admirable  violet  and  porcelain-like  whites. 
Looking  now  into  them,  dark  in  the  paleness  of  Grace's 
face,  Drusilla  surprised  a  terrible  look  of  suffering  such 
as  comes  for  a  deathly  thing  done  or  a  vital  thing  left 
undone. 

Something  in  Miss  Morland's  past  ?  Something 
with  a  man  in  it  ?  His  voice  broke  bidding  her  fare- 
well, his  eyes  overflowed,  his  hand  shook.  .  .  . 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  71 

They  were  in  the  street  now,  Drusilla's  shyness 
keeping  her  in  shelter  by  Michael,  who  was  not  so 
handsome  nor  so  sarcastic  as  his  friend. 

"  D-do  you  go  on  the  subway  ?  "  Michael  asked 
with  a  stumbling  eagerness. 

"  Sometimes,"  Drusilla  replied  solemnly.  "  But 
I  like  the  car  best." 

"  Do  come  on  the  car,"  Michael  said.  "  Do  you 
live  near  Miss  Morland  ?  "  He  was  hoping  that  the 
two  girls  dwelt  many  miles  apart. 

Behind  them  Racie — who  had  none  of  the  sustained 
conversational  brilliancy  that  Drusilla  feared  in  him — 
was  asking  Grace  if  she  went  on  the  subway.  .  .  . 
The  four  of  them  mounted  to  the  roof  of  a  car  and 
Michael  bought  tickets.  The  car  began  to  move  west- 
wards through  a  web  of  golden  lights.  Michael  saw 
Drusilla's  face  fitfully  illumed  and  shadowed.  Always 
there  was  the  wonder  that  a  thing  so  beautiful  should 
endure  for  the  returning  of  his  gaze. 

Racie  and  Miss  Morland  had  risen  and  were  stum- 
bling towards  them :  they  went  down  the  stair,  swayed 
this  way  and  that  by  the  swinging  of  the  car.  At  the 
corner  where  Drusilla's  homeward  way  parted  from 
Grace's  they  stood  and  talked  ;  Grace  ostentatiously 
familiar  with  the  young  men,  calling  them  "  you  boys," 
using  their  abbreviated  names.  Drusilla  listened  to 
all  this  with  wonder.  Should  she  ever  call  young  men, 
not  blood  relations,  by  such  diminutives  as  "  Racie  " 
and  "  Mick  "  ? 

Grace's  check-key  chuckled  in  the  lock,  her 
"  Good  night !  "  and  the  slam  of  the  door  startled 
the  stillness  of  the  long  row  of  house-fronts,  half 
obliterated  by  the  mass  of  trees  mourning  in  the 
wind.  Michael  and  Racie,  with  Drusilla  between 


72  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

them,  walked  on  in  a  direction  that  Michael  already 
knew. 

They  mounted  the  slightly  sloping  street  under  a 
dark  blue  sky,  with  high  indigo  blocks  of  buildings  on 
either  side.  The  street  lamps  showed,  blurred  golden, 
veiled  in  the  misty  blueness.  The  sound  of  traffic 
came  faintly  from  wider  streets  behind  them,  still 
pulsing  and  flowing  with  the  passion  of  the  city's 
life. 

Racie  looked  inquiringly  at  Michael,  who  paused  at 
Number  Twenty-three. 

"  Yes,  it's  here,"  Drusilla  said. 

"  You're  next  door  to  Mr.  Patullo,"  Racie  informed 
her. 

Drusilla  did  not  deny  it. 

"  I  don't  suppose  you  know  him  ?  "  Racie  said,  as 
if  the  suggestion  of  such  a  thing  were  an  impertinence. 
"  He's  the  treasurer  of  the  Eire." 

"  I  know  him  just  by  sight,"  Drusilla  said.  Racie 
was  already  condemning  his  own  heedlessness  in  again 
mentioning  the  Eire  Club.  But  the  good-nights  were 
said  without  Michael  asking  Drusilla  to  join. 

Drusilla  had  no  key.  She  clicked  the  letter-box 
and  rang  the  bell ;  and  was  answered  by  a  wrathful 
sniff  inside  the  house  and  the  dragging  of  reluctant 
feet.  The  door  was  jerked  open,  and  Aunt  Caroline, 
in  a  blue  and  black  dressing-gown  and  with  rubber 
curlers  in  her  hair,  could  be  seen  flouncing  into  the 
parlour.  Drusilla  frantically  closed  the  door. 

"  Where  on  earth  have  you  been  ?  "  Aunt  Caroline 
exclaimed,  then  sank  into  mutterings.  ..."  A  nice 
hour  of  the  night — near  twelve — might  remember 
others  have  got  to  get  up  in  the  morning  and  go  out 
to  work.  We  all  can't  .  ." 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  73 

"  Nonsense.  It's  not  eleven  yet.  You've  no  right 
to  tell  untruths,"  Drusilla  said. 

She  was  amazed  at  her  own  spirit.  And  Aunt 
Caroline,  as  if  amazed  too  and  acquiescing  in  some- 
thing changed,  shuffled  back  to  her  chair-bed  without 
even  mentioning  the  chaining  of  the  hall-door. 

Michael  and  Racie,  in  silence,  walked  to  Mrs. 
Wylie's  door. 

"  Isn't  it  a  beautiful  night  ?  "  Michael  said.  .  .  . 
"  Lovely." 

Racie  looked  at  his  shining  eyes,  smiled  faintly,  and 
went.  .  .  .  After  all,  Michael  Quentin  had  money 
he  could  afford  to  make  a  fool  of  himself. 


Ill 

Drusilla  remembered  that  she  had  been  smoking  : 
cachous  occurred  to  her  as  a  means  of  deceiving  her 
family.  She  looked  about,  saw  a  chemist's  shop,  and 
entered.  Dr.  Alexander  Cowie  came  from  the  back 
of  the  shop. 

Drusilla  had  met  Cowie  five  times  at  the  five  meet- 
ings of  the  Eire  Club  which  she  had  attended  during 
the  months  of  June  and  July.  It  became  impossible 
to  buy  cachous. 

"  My  consulting-rooms  are  here,  you  know,"  Cowie 
explained,  "  and  Mr.  Barrowman's  away  for  tea,  so 
I'm  rushing  into  the  breach."  He  smiled  socially 
with  an  air  of  being  ready  for  a  talk.  His  expression 
was  habitually  self-confident,  yet  Drusilla  noticed  for 
the  first  time  an  emotional  modesty  in  him.  He  had 
coloured  a  little,  though  the  thunderous  July  weather 
had  faded  the  pink  in  his  cheeks,  and  his  eyes  were 
rather  shy  and  (she  thought)  very  pretty.  They  were 


74  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

like  a  doll's  eyes,  with  their  round  blue-grey  irises  and 
the  thick  dark  lash-fringe  above  and  below  them. 
She  sought  something  to  say. 

"  There  was  rather  a  small  attendance  on  Thursday, 
wasn't  there  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  know,  Miss  Trathbye,"  Cowie  said,  "  it's 
a  mistake  to  have  the  meetings  so  far  into  the  summer 
when  the  evenings  are  long  and  light.  People  want 
to  be  out  enjoying  theirselves."  Cowie  put  a  sugges- 
tion of  roguishness  into  his  tone  and  Drusilla  smiled. 

"  I  think  it's  rather  a  pity  always  to  drop  things  in 
the  summer,"  she  said.  "  There  are  such  a  lot  of 
empty  evenings.  ..."  Her  voice  faded  away  as  she 
thought  that  she  was  exposing  the  dullness  and 
poverty  at  home  :  it  was  abominable  not  to  have 
friends  and  resources  like  other  people. 

But  Cowie  was  looking  at  her  rather  strangely,  with 
a  kind  of  eagerness  and  pleasure.  She  had  an  im- 
pression that  he  checked  something  that  he  was  about 
to  utter  ;  then  he  said  : 

"  That  is  so,  no  doubt.  But  every  one  doesn't  think 
as  you  do,  Miss  Trathbye.  There's  very  few  that  take 
a  real  interest  in  littery  matters.  ..."  A  boy  came 
in  to  buy  a  bottle  of  iron  tonic  and  Cowie  served  him, 
after  some  searching  and  doubtful  conjectures  about 
the  chemist's  prices.  "  Barrowman's  an  old  school 
chum  of  mine,"  Cowie  explained  to  Drusilla.  "  He 
and  I  were  at  school  together  :  he's  rather  struggling 
but  a  thoroughly  good  fellow,  and  my  best  friend." 
Cowie,  with  his  slow  pompous  manner  of  utterance 
and  his  deep  voice,  had  an  air  of  conferring  a  diploma 
on  Barrowman  by  this  speech. 

Drusilla,  interested,  looked  round  the  meagrely 
stocked  little  shop.  Since  their  first  meeting  she  had 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  75 

thought  of  Cowie  as  a  rather  piquant  creature.  He 
was  a  doctor,  just  beginning  practice,  he  had  told  her, 
and  he  was  quite  unlike  her  idea  of  a  doctor — quite 
unlike  the  two  other  doctors  that  she  knew.  Cowie 
seemed  to  Drusilla  to  have  passed  through  his  uni- 
versity life  without  absorbing  any  sort  of  culture  ;  and 
this  surprised  her  very  much  for,  in  her  uneducated 
state,  she  thought  of  culture  as  the  necessary  accom- 
paniment of  education.  It  was  puzzling  that  Cowie 
should  speak  as  he  did  ;  and  puzzling,  but  admirable 
and  quaint,  that  he  should  be  so  utterly  contented 
with  himself,  with  his  lot,  with  his  friends.  If  Drusilla 
had  been  offered  a  wish  by  a  suddenly  appearing 
fairy,  she  would  probably  have  spoken,  without  a 
moment's  sounding  of  the  depths  of  her  heart,  the 
thought  that  lay  constantly  near  to  the  surface  :  "  Let 
me  get  away  !  "  To  what,  was  vague  :  from  what 
was  definite  and  sure.  It  was  singular  that  Cowie, 
apparently  so  young  and  vital,  should  feel  neither 
yearning  nor  disgust. 

This  was  one  of  the  thoughts  that  Drusilla  had 
about  Alexander  Cowie.  Others  were  that  he  was 
seemingly  sociable  and  popular,  that  he  (probably) 
lived  in  a  little  flat  or  cottage,  that  his  people  were 
(probably)  "  rather  awful  "  ;  also  that  he  was  good- 
looking  and  dressy  with  a  common  smartness  and 
trimness.  But  the  truth  is  Drusilla  had  thought  very 
little  about  him  and  would  have  thought  less  had  not 
the  human  lives  familiar  to  her  been  so  few.  Cowie's 
commonness,  his  unashamedness,  put  him  outside  of 
the  clique  of  persons  whom  the  Trathbyes  considered 
their  equals.  Mrs.  Trathbye  would  not  have  taken 
Cowie  seriously  as  an  acquaintance  ;  and  neither  did 
Drusilla  take  him  quite  seriously.  He  was  a  mongrel 


76  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

kind  of  doctor,  whose  consulting-room  was  at  the  back 
of  a  chemist's  shop,  and  whose  dress  was  not  that  of 
a  doctor  but  of  a  typical  Glasgow  "  Johnnie  " — one 
of  those  young  men  who  "  swanked "  on  the  pave- 
ments and  in  the  tea-rooms  of  Sauchiehall  Street 
and  Buchanan  Street. 

"  I  don't  think,  you  know,"  Cowie  said,  "  that 
Quentin's  quite  a  success  as  Chairman.  You  want  a 
go-ahead  man  with  bright  ideas  for  a  thing  like  a 
littery."- 

"  Mr.  Quentin  doesn't  want  the  Eire  Club  to  be  an 
ordinary  literary  club,"  Drusilla  objected. 

"  That's  so,  of  course,"  Cowie  said  mechanically, 
and  went  on  as  if  she  had  not  spoken.  "  People  go  to 
a  littery  to  be  livened  up,  not  to  be  put  to  sleep.  That 
paper  we  had  on  Thursday,  for  instance — yon's  not 
the  sort  of  thing  to  take,  you  know.  I  wonder  Moore 
doesn't  take  the  thing  in  hand  himself." 

"  Mr.  Moore  ?  " 

"  Yes.  He's  on  The  Mercury,  you  know,"  Cowie 
said  with  an  important  air.  "  Very  quiet  chap,  but 
I'd  think  he  must  have  more  practical  go-ahead  ideas 
than  Quentin." 

Drusilla  felt  angry  and  contemptuous.  The 
Mercury  ! 

"  But  the  Eire  Club's  for  Irish  people,"  she  said. 
"  It's  to  study  Celtic  literature." 

"  Oh,  he'll  never  make  anything  of  that,"  Cowie  said 
undisturbed.  "  He'd  be  better  to  keep  an  open  door. 
No  one  could  be  more  interested  than  I  am  in  the 
Celtic  spirit,"  he  added  with  his  air  of  solemn  propriety. 
"  It  gets  closer  to  Nature  than  the  Sassenach  can  : 
I'm  a  bit  of  a  Celt  myself :  one  of  my  grandmothers 
was  a  Ross-shire  woman.  .  .  .  But  an  ideal  littery 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  77 

ought  to  aim  at  combining  the  Celtic  animation  with 
the  more  solid  qualities.  .  .  .  Quentin's  too  much  of 
an  autocrat.  Mind  you,  I'm  not  a  Socialist ;  I've 
no  sympathy  with  sentimental  talk  about  equality. 
A  strong  man  is  the  man  that's  got  to  lead.  But 
Quentin  isn't  a  strong  man  :  he'd  be  better  to  listen 
to  the  opinions  of  a  committee." 

Drusilla  had  come  to  understand  something  of  what 
was  happening  to  the  Eire  Club  :  she  shared  Michael's 
sense  that  the  club  was  being  taken  from  him  with  a 
slow  sureness,  and  altered  to  the  club  of  Alexander 
Cowie.  Cowie,  who  had  "  dropped  in  "  at  the  club  at 
a  casual  word  of  a  friend,  and  come  again  because  the 
evening  of  meeting  was  more  convenient  to  him  than 
that  of  his  own  "  church  littery  "  !  Cowie  was  domi- 
nating by  virtue  of  his  power  of  supplying  what  the 
other  members  expected.  And  this  mysterious  thing 
was  happening  while  Michael  and  Drusilla  watched. 

"  Well,  he  founded  the  club  and  it's  his  money," 
Drusilla  attempted. 

'*  That's  just  it,"  Cowie  said  with  a  triumphant  air. 
"  Folks  like  Quentin  always  think  you  can  do  any- 
thing with  money.  You  can't." 

Drusilla,  in  her  annoyance,  had  opened  a  glass  case 
on  the  counter,  and  begun  to  compare  tooth-brushes. 
She  looked  up,  arrested  by  the  dominance  in  Cowie's 
tone.  She  was  struck  by  a  suggestion  of  power  in  him. 
What  was  it  ?  She  tried  to  determine  if  the  fresh  soft- 
ness of  his  cheeks  and  lips,  the  dewiness  of  his  eyes, 
were  simply  the  painting  of  youth  and  health  and 
happiness  on  forms  that  were  in  reality  strong  and 
harsh.  But  like  most  people  she  found  it  difficult  to 
distinguish  lines  from  hues. 

"  Beg  pardon,  were  you  wanting  one  of  those  ?  " 


78  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

Cowie  said.  He  bent  over  the  counter  and  for  a  mo- 
ment their  heads  were  rather  close  together.  Brasilia 
heard  Cowie  utter  a  sniff,  and  she  quickly  drew 
back. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I'm  forgetting  it's  after  four 
o'clock  and  I  must  get  home.  I'm  to  bring  something 
for  tea."  She  laughed,  as  people  do  when  speaking  of 
household  things  which  they  treat  with  the  utmost 
solemnity.  Cowie  was  still  slowly  examining  the 
tooth-brushes,  his  red  underlip  projecting  and  a  frown 
drawing  his  brows  together.  Suddenly  he  looked  up 
and  asked  abruptly  : 

"  Do  you  see  much  of  Miss  Morland,  Miss  Trath- 
bye?"  * 

"  I've  just  been  to  see  her,"  Drusilla  answered  with 
another  uneasy  laugh. 

"  So  I  thought,"  Cowie  said  dryly.  He  held  out  the 
bunch  of  tooth-brushes.  "  That's  rather  a  nice  one  ? 
Do  you  want  it  hard  or  soft  ?  Barrowman  ought  to 
leave  the  prices  marked  on  things  when  he  goes  away 
to  his  tea.  ...  I  say,  don't  you  learn  anything  from 
Miss  Morland." 

"  Learn  ?  .  .  .  "  Drusilla  faltered. 

"  Yes.  She's  been  teaching  you  to  smoke,  hasn't 
she?  .  .  .  She  won't  teach  you  anything  that's  nice." 

Drusilla's  eyes  flashed  into  Cowie's  flushing  face  : 
the  blood,  always  vividly  in  evidence  in  her  cheeks, 
surged  up  her  temples  and  brow.  .  .  .  Cowie  still 
awkwardly  held  the  tooth-brushes.  It  was  as  if 
prompted  by  a  nice  dramatic  instinct  that  Barrowman 
entered  the  shop  at  this  moment. 

"  I  don't  know  what  right.  ..."  Drusilla  was 
muttering,  not  knowing  what  more  she  was  going  to 
say.  She  selected  a  soft,  black-haired  brush,  a  thing 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  79 

she  detested.  Eagerly,  with  a  vindictive  snobbish 
sense  of  forcing  Cowie  into  the  position  proper  to  him, 
she  offered  him  ninepence.  Cowie  made  a  gesture 
towards  Barrowman,  who  took  the  money. 

Drusilla,  with  a  sense  of  defeat,  bowed  and  left  the 
shop.  She  hurried  into  a  baker's  and  bought  some 
crumpets.  As  she  walked  on,  her  anger,  which  was 
half  embarrassment,  subsided,  and  she  even  smiled. 
Cowie's  rebuke  had  made  an  appeal  to  her  femininity  : 
she  felt  vaguely  that  it  was  a  kind  of  compliment. 
She  began  to  imagine  little  developments  of  the  scene 
— things  that  might  have  happened,  that  might  have 
been  done  and  said  if  Barrowman  had  not  come  back. 
Cowie's  speech  had  been  a  stimulating  surprise  :  she 
sent  her  memory  back  and  found  that  she  could  re- 
member, almost  exactly,  each  occasion  on  which  she 
had  seen  Cowie,  and  how  he  had  looked  and  what  he 
had  said.  .  .  .  And  her  thoughts  refused  to  stay  with 
him  but  went  to  Michael  Quentin. 

Alexander  Cowie  !  He  was  simply  an  impertinent 
chemist.  A  suggestion  of  the  counter  clung  about 
him — about  his  clothes  and  boots  and  moustache. 
Even  his  rose-coloured  cheeks  and  the  soft  shining 
of  his  eyes  had  something  cheap  and  showy.  But 
Michael  Quentin 

Drusilla  found  that  she  had  no  precise  neutral  record 
of  her  few  talks  with  Michael.  He  had  slid  into  her 
life  quietly  :  it  already  seemed  natural  to  believe  that 
he  had  always  been  there.  Had  he  not  indeed  always 
been  there —  a  dimly  formed  ideal  which  had  fed  the 
hunger  of  her  heart  ?  Not  like  other  men — not  like 
any  one  else.  She  felt  that  she  did  not  need  to  explain 
herself  to  him.  She  had  a  complete  faith  in  his  kind- 
ness :  he  did  not  excite  nor  frighten  nor  intrigue  her 


80  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

as  other  people  did.  Her  heart  rested  contentedly 
on  the  thought  of  him.  .  .  . 

"  Miss  Trathbye  !  " 

It  was  Cowie  running  after  her.  He  made  up  on 
her,  panting,  forgetting  to  lift  his  hat.  Drusilla 
walked  along  beside  him,  not  looking  at  him. 

"  Miss  Trathbye,  I  suppose  I've  offended  you," 
Cowie  said  indignantly.  ..."  I  suppose  you  think 
I'd  no  business  to  say  that  ?  " 

"  I  was  surprised,"  Drusilla  said  coldly.  A  silence 
followed,  and  she  knew  that  she  would  hold  a 
stronger  position  if  she  said  nothing  :  but  a  curious 
and  apparently  disproportionate  excitement  urged  her 
into  speech. 

"  It  wasn't  a  nice  way  to  speak  about  a  lady,"  she 
said,  tremulously  squeezing  the  bag  of  crumpets. 
"  And  it  was  ridiculous,  of  course.  .  .  .  Still,  that  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  You  don't  know  me,  you're 
practically  a  stranger.  ..." 

"  I  know  what  I'm  talking  about,"  Cowie  said 
almost  violently.  "  Miss  Morland — well,  I'm  saying 
nothing  against  Miss  Morland — but  she  isn't  your  sort." 

"  How  do  you  know  what  my  '  sort '  is  ?  "  Drusilla 
asked,  an  involuntary  little  quaver  of  laughter  in  her 
voice. 

"  I've  eyes  in  my  head,"  Cowie  retorted.  He  was 
rough,  vulgar,  almost  brutal  :  the  arch  gallantry  of 
the  literary  society  wit  and  ladies'  man  was  gone  from 
him.  "  I'm  saying  nothing  against  Miss  Morland, 
mind  :  she  can  do  as  she  pleases  :  but  you're  different." 

"  You  mean  /  can't  do  as  I  please  ?  "  Drusilla 
rippled. 

Cowie  glanced  at  her  unsmilingly. 

"  I  mean  you're  different  from  Miss  Morland,"  he 


THE  IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  81 

said.  "  She  can  do  as  she  likes.  But  you're  younger 
and  .  .  .  '  Cowie's  voice  died  away  into  an  un- 
characteristic mutter. 

"  I  don't  see  what  my  age  has  got  to  do  with  it," 
Drusilla  said,  with  a  base  sort  of  pleasure  in  his  other 
meaning  that  she  guessed. 

"  You're — more  attractive,"  Cowie  said  grudgingly. 
"  At  least  to  some  people.  I  don't  mean  you're  ob- 
viously attractive  to  the  man  in  the  street." 

Drusilla  felt  angry  :  she  did  not  search  for  the  exact 
reason,  but  told  herself  again  that  Cowie  was  im- 
pertinent. 

"  Suppose  we  leave  my  personal  appearance  out  of 
the  conversation,"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  beg  pardon.  Beg  pardon,  I'm  sure,"  Cowie 
said  huffily.  They  walked  without  speech  for  a  few 
minutes  ;  then  he  spoke  in  a  different  tone  : 

"  I  suppose  it's  kindness  makes  you  take  up  with 
her.  I  think  you  could  not  be  anything  but  gentle 
and  kind.  .  .  ." 

"  What  nonsense !  "  Drusilla  said  in  a  touched 
surprise  :  for  he  spoke  earnestly  and  his  face  had 
flushed.  "  If  there's  any  kindness  I  suppose  it's  on 
her  side." 

"  Oh,  I  say  \  "  Cowie  exclaimed. 

"  Well,  it  is — in  a  way.  She  knows  far  more  about 
things  than  I  do  :  her  life's  far  fuller.  She  has  ever 
so  many  more  friends  ..." 

"  Oh,  I  say  !  "  Cowie  repeated  ;  with  a  reverent 
sort  of  amusement  as  if  at  a  beautiful  innocence. 
"  Who  told  you  she'd  such  a  lot  of  friends  ?  " 

"  She  did  herself,"  Drusilla  replied  crushingly. 

Cowie  laughed  loudly  in  an  irritating  way  ;  and 
Drusilla  again  reminded  herself  of  that  great  social  gulf 


82  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

between  them.  ...  It  was  rather  an  enfeebling  thing 
to  find  that  Cowie  had  absolutely  no  consciousness  of 
the  gulf's  existence. 

"  When  folks  have  lots  of  friends  they  don't  go 
about  bragging  about  it,"  Cowie  said. 

Drusilla  felt  the  truth  of  this  and  the  sudden  search- 
ing flash  which  it  turned  on  Grace's  case.  Drusilla 
rebelled  against  the  cruelty  of  it — undeserving 
Respectability's  harshness  to  the  outcast  and  the 
questionable. 

"  Suppose  she  has  no  friends  ?  "  Drusilla  broke 
out.  She  was  beginning  to  see  that  she  had  been 
too  credulous  of  Miss  Morland,  but  was  hardly 
aware  of,  or  willing  to  admit,  the  extent  of  the 
delusion. 

"  It's  nothing  against  a  person  to  have  no  friends," 
she  went  on  with  cheeks  aflush.  "  Some  of  the  best 
and  greatest  people  who  have  ever  been  on  the  earth 
have  been  friendless." 

"  Who  ?  "  Cowie  inquired. 

There  was  a  silence.  Drusilla  could  not  think  of 
any  examples. 

"  Shelley,"  she  suggested  presently. 

"  I  don't  admit  Shelley  was  a  good  man,"  Cowie 
said.  "  Have  you  read  his  life  ?  " 

"  No  ...  but  ..." 

"  I'm  glad  you  haven't,"  Cowie  said,  smiling.  The 
patronage  of  the  smile  was  exasperating,  but  it  con- 
tained something  bright  and  tender — something  that 
allured  her.  She  thought  again  that  Cowie  was  good- 
looking  with  pretty  eyes. 

"  I  don't  mean  that  Miss  Morland  comes  into  the 
same  category  as  Shelley,"  he  said. 

"  No  ?  "  Drusilla  uttered,  ironical. 


THE   IMPRISONED  PRINCESS  83 

"  No,"  Cowie  said  solemnly,  as  if  much  depended 
on  his  judgments.  "  Miss  Morland's  all  right  as  far  as 
I  know  :  only  she's  not  your  sort.  She's  a  bit  fast. 
I  don't  approve  of  ladies  smoking  and  wearing  dresses 
that  show  their  limbs." 

"  Do  you  approve  of  them  having  limbs  ?  "  Drusilla 
asked.  Cowie  disregarded  her. 

"  Those  militant  suffragettes  ..."  he  said. 

"  Oh,  I  thought  we'd  get  to  that !  "  Drusilla  ex- 
claimed. "  Miss  Morland  is  a  suffragette,  but  she 
isn't  militant.  She'd  be  glorious  if  she  were.  She'd 
be  glorious  if  she  did  anything  with  her  whole  heart." 

Cowie  looked  at  her,  sideways,  with  a  strange,  shy 
look. 

"  Suppose  a  woman  did  something  else  with  her 
whole  heart — would  you  think  that  worth  while,  Miss 
Trathbye  ?  " 

Even  in  his  awkwardness  Cowie  kept  the  pompous 
utterance  of  the  church  literary  society.  His  deep 
voice,  with  the  rising  inflection,  reminded  Drusilla  of 
his  inevitable  "  Mr.  Chairman  ?  "  and  the  giggles  of 
his  female  admirers  at  the  club. 

"  What  sort  of  thing  ?  "  she  asked  laughingly. 

"  Suppose  she  were  to  give  her  whole  heart — to 
loving  a  man,"  Cowie  faltered.  ..."  Would  you  call 
that  glorious  ?  " 

**  Yes  !  "  Drusilla  said,  with  a  kind  of  grave  triumph. 

They  walked  on,  the  melting  asphalt  pavement 
under  their  feet,  the  hot,  whitey  blue  sky  above.  On 
either  side  of  the  wide  street  in  which  they  were  there 
were  shop-fronts,  of  bright  variegated  hues  ;  and 
above  the  gay  shops  the  windows  of  countless  dwell- 
ings, curtained  or  uncurtained,  open  or  closed,  with 
or  without  window-boxes  full  of  blooms.  The  electric 


84  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

cars,  cleanly  and  hardly  coloured  as  enamelled  toys, 
rolled  and  crashed  along  their  rails,  with  the  ping  ! 
of  bells  and  the  quick,  clipped  directions  of  the  guards. 
A  piano-organ  by  the  kerb  rippled  with  melody,  the 
nodding,  smiling  head  of  the  Italian  girl  who  turned 
the  handle  joining  in  the  suggestion  of  an  exuberance 
of  pleasure.  To  Drusilla  and  Cowie  the  whole  scene 
was  just  now  dear  and  beautiful,  full  of  the  mystery 
and  romance  of  life.  They  walked  on  in  silence  till 
they  reached  the  corner  of  the  narrower,  sloping  street 
in  which  the  Trathbyes  lived.  Then  Cowie  said,  in  a 
low  voice  :  "  Thank  you  "  ;  and  they  met  Aunt 
Caroline  coming  up  the  street. 

Drusilla  introduced  Cowie  to  her  aunt,  and  then  re- 
membered that  The  Lady's  Circle  said  that  you  should 
not  introduce  people  in  the  street :  she  wondered  if 
Aunt  Caroline,  too,  remembered  this  and  was  gloating 
over  the  blunder.  But  Aunt  Caroline,  like  the  women 
at  the  Eire  Club,  seemed  sensible  of  Cowie's  charm. 

"  He's  a  nice  fellow,"  she  said,  as  Cowie,  straight 
and  trim,  went  off  with  his  casual  lift  of  the  hat. 

"  Yes,"  Drusilla  said,  not  hearing  her. 

Cowie  got  on  to  one  of  the  bright,  clean  cars — one 
with  orange  and  lemon  colours — and  sat  on  the  top, 
smoking  cigarettes  while  he  was  being  carried  home- 
wards. He  smoked  from  habit  and  because  he  had  a 
feeling  that  he  must  appear  decently  composed.  His 
habitual  content  was  glorified  into  exultation,  his 
cheerfulness  into  radiance.  He  had  asked  :  "  Miss 
Trathbye,  would  you  not  call  it  a  fine  thing  for  a 
woman  to  love  a  man  with  her  whole  heart  ?  "  or 
words  to  that  effect ;  and  she  had  answered  :  "  Yes." 
Not  meaninglessly,  not  in  mere  general  acquiescence. 
How  divinely  she  had  said  it,  with  what  a  resonance  of 


THE  IMPRISONED   PRINCESS  85 

triumph,  in  what  an  abandonment  of  heart  revelation. 
"  Yes  !  "  .  .  .  He  re-created  the  sound  of  it  again  and 
again  as  the  car  bore  him  homewards.  Lights  were 
beginning  to  blossom  in  the  city  ;  and  every  light  had 
a  new  meaning  for  him.  The  city  was  no  longer 
merely  a  home,  a  dear  pleasant  place  for  work  and 
play,  for  friendships  and  those  singular  relationships 
styled  "  business  connections."  It  had  become  a 
place  full  of  the  mystery  and  romance  of  life,  of  latent 
raptures,  terrors,  and  enmities.  The  heart  of  God 
pulsed  in  it. 

Drusilla  was  looking  out  from  the  open  parlour 
window.  She  saw  a  haziness  of  blue  distance,  of 
sheeny,  dull  blue  roofs  and  dimly  coloured  stone  ; 
heard  a  heavy  hum  and  clatter,  far  off  from  the 
Trathbyes'  quiet  side  street.  Here  and  there  a  win- 
dow glimmered  yellow,  and  the  street  lamps  spangled 
the  twilight.  Drusilla  could  smell  the  blossom  of  an 
elder-bush  in  a  grass-plot  three  stories  below  her  ;  and 
its  fragrance  blended  into  her  dreamy  sense  of  summer, 
of  sweetness.  She  lingered,  loving  the  dusty  blueness, 
the  huddled  houses,  the  scurr  of  feet  on  the  pavements. 
She  thought  of  all  the  mystery  and  romance  that  the 
city  held  :  she  heard  in  the  streets  the  footsteps  of  the 
God  of  Love  :  she  felt  the  pulsing  of  his  heart. 

But  she  did  not  think  of  Alexander  Cowie  :  because, 
when  she  had  said  :  "  Yes  !  "  she  had  been  thinking  of 
Michael  Quentin. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS 

THE  morning  post  had  brought  the  Trathbyes  two 
envelopes.  One  contained  a  letter  from  John,  Mrs. 
Trathbye's  son,  who  was  still  in  Ireland.  Mrs.  Trath- 
bye's husband  had  been  the  owner  of  an  attenuated 
property  which  had  come  down  to  him  through  a  long 
line  of  more  or  less  distinguished,  and  more  or  less 
reckless,  ancestors.  Mr.  Trathbye  had  not  been  able 
to  cope  with  the  troubles  that  he  had  inherited  ;  and 
after  a  long  wearisome  life  of  lawsuits,  of  hunting, 
shooting,  and  fishing,  and,  latterly,  of  defending  him- 
self against  his  wife's  reproaches,  he  had  died  when 
John  was  twenty.  Several  of  Mrs.  Trathbye's  chil- 
dren had  been  short-lived,  and  when  John  was  enter- 
ing his  young  manhood,  his  sisters  were  little  children. 
Examination  of  Mr.  Trathbye's  affairs  showed  that 
they  were  in  a  wretched  state,  only  one  scrap  of  pro- 
perty, a  portion  of  the  moorland  village  of  Croaghnai- 
hill,  in  County  Galway,  being  legally  claimable  by  his 
heir. 

"  Ah  !  I  wish  we  could  get  out  of  this  !  "  Mrs. 
Trathbye  repeated.  She  had  said  it  often  before  :  it 
expressed  the  spirit  which  had  animated  her  during 
most  of  her  married  life  of  disappointments,  failures, 
joys,  and  blunders.  She  had  that  curious  optimism 
regarding  changes  in  the  disposal  of  material  things 
which  sometimes  co-exists  with  a  complete  pessimism 
regarding  human  motives  and  achievements.  She  did 
not  believe  that  any  good  thing  could  be  found  in  her 
husband's  people,  nor  indeed  in  any  people  :  but  the 

86 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   87 

scenes  of  her  married  life  had  been  for  so  long  asso- 
ciated with  her  chagrins  that  it  seemed  to  her,  im- 
patient, that  the  inanimate  surroundings  must  have 
absorbed  all  the  enmity  of  fate.     "  Let  us  get  out  of 
this  !     Let  us  get  away  !  "  she  had  said  over  and  over 
again  ;    angrily  sometimes,  but  never  in  truth  with 
enough  of  bitterness  to  urge  her  to  translate  her  speech 
into  action.     She  knew  in  her  heart  that  she  had  often 
been  happy,  that  the  place  was  alive  with  memories 
that  clung  to  her  with  warm  hands.     She  had  a  vague 
delight  in  being  somebody  with  an  honour  that  was 
independent  of  poverty,  debts,  and  lawsuits  :  she  had 
a  fear,  more  vague,  of  the  world  beyond,  though  she 
was  incapable  of  knowing  that  there  she  would  be 
rated  as  a  nobody.     So  she  had  said  :    "I  wish  we 
could  get  away  :    we'll  never  do  any  good  here  !  " 
and  had  remained  in  love  with  her  ill-luck,  tending  her 
fowls  in  the  yard,  playing  with  her  living  children  in 
the  charming  half-wild  garden,  visiting  the  graves  of 
her  dead  children  in  the  churchyard.     But  when  her 
husband  died  Mrs.  Trathbye  found  that  circumstances, 
perhaps  maliciously,  perhaps  in  mere  stupidity,  in- 
sisted  on   granting   her   expressed   wish.     She   was 
practically  obliged  to  go  :    she  had  three  little  girls 
who — John  said  plainly — would  eat  up  all  that  there 
was.     And  Mrs.  Trathbye's  hesitation  was — in  John's 
opinion — made  a  crime  by  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from 
a  distant  cousin,  a  poor  relation,  a  disgraceful,  kind 
faithful  creature,  who,  many  years  ago,  had  started  a 
boarding-house  in  Glasgow.     Let  Mrs.  Trathbye  put 
her  own  fifty  pounds  a  year  into  the  boarding-house. 
Let  her  take  the  little  girls  and,  when  they  became 
older,  have  them  taught  "  to  do  something  "  there. 
Above  all,  let  her  take  Aunt  Caroline,  who  would  .  .  . 


88  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

be  useful  in  the  boarding-house  ...  in  many 
ways.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Trathbye  went,  taking  with  her  the  three 
children,  a  servant  for  the  boarding-house,  and  the 
superfluous  Caroline ;  an  unfortunate  creature,  a 
young  woman  who  had  succumbed  to  the  first  touch  of 
aunt-hood  ;  whom  no  one  expected,  or  wished,  to  get 
married,  she  herself  least  of  all.  John's  dread  was 
that  she  might  be  left  on  his  hands,  and  he  had  pro- 
tested stormily  against  his  mother's  idea  that  Aunt 
Caroline  should  remain  to  keep  house  for  him.  Even 
after  she  had  been  taken  away  he  apprehended  her 
return. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Caroline  went  in  a  vortex  of 
feelings,  grief,  shame,  hope,  and  an  innocent  exultation 
in  their  own  activity,  an  innocent  fanciful  curiosity 
regarding  the  strange  city  to  which  they  were  going. 
Drusilla,  who  was  seven  at  the  time,  and  Essie  who  was 
six,  remembered  well  the  wonders,  the  fusses  and 
fatigues  at  Greenock  on  the  Clyde  in  the  early  morn- 
ing ;  the  grey-greenness  of  the  sky  and  the  river,  the 
shining  of  the  wet  pier,  the  groanings  and  gasps  of 
the  big  steamer,  the  loud  weeping  of  Aunt  Caroline, 
broken  down  with  weariness  and  homesickness  and 
unkindly  questioned  about  the  tickets  which  in  her 
anguish  on  the  boat  she  had  mislaid. 

"  Take  our  name,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  had  said  haughtily 
to  the  unimpressed  official.  But  the  tickets  had  been 
found,  in  Aunt  Caroline's  squashed  little  black  bag, 
beaten  into  a  sort  of  pulp  with  remains  of  bananas  and 
meat  sandwiches.  Drusilla  could  always  re-create — 
with  a  pang  so  poignant  that  it  was  almost  love — the 
desolate  dowdy  figure,  the  cold  little  hands  groping 
in  the  bag,  the  sudden  flash  of  happy  relief  lighting 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   89 

up  the   meagre   face    ravaged   by   sea-sickness   and 
sorrow. 

The  Trathbyes  lived  for  four  years  with  the  poor 
relation ;  quarrelling,  taking  offence,  losing  money, 
and  every  now  and  then  forming  plans  for  vaguely 
"  going  away  altogether."  At  the  end  of  the  fourth 
year  the  poor  relation  died,  and,  for  two  years,  Mrs. 
Trathbye  and  Aunt  Caroline  "  ran  "  the  boarding- 
house  themselves.  "  Ran  "  was  the  word  that  they 
used  afterwards  when  they  spoke  of  this  matter  :  but 
the  truth  is  that  the  thing  did  not  run — it  hobbled, 
with  a  gait  that  was  ever  more  blundering  and  feeble. 
At  the  end  of  the  second  year  it  was  closed,  and  Mrs. 
Trathbye,  relieved  from  immediate  anxieties  but  vul- 
garised and  embittered,  retired  with  Aunt  Caroline 
and  the  children  into  a  three-roomed  flat,  where  they 
must  exist  on  Mrs.  Trathbye's  fifty  pounds  a  year  and 
the  odd  sums  that  Aunt  Caroline  earned  by  contribut- 
ing to  the  cookery  and  household  columns  of  various 
Irish  papers.  Aunt  Caroline  had  tried  several  times 
to  obtain  what  she  called  "  a  situation  "  ;  answering 
advertisements  almost,  it  seemed,  at  random,  so 
utterly  unfitted  was  she  for  the  work  specified.  At 
intervals,  especially  when  she  had  a  disagreement  with 
Mrs.  Trathbye,  she  still  put  her  name  down  on  the 
books  of  registries  and  trudged  to  mystical  appoint- 
ments. But  she  was  never  engaged  nor,  indeed,  would 
she  have  known  what  to  do  had  such  a  thing  happened. 
The  recommendation  from  one  of  her  Irish  editors — an 
old  family  friend  to  whom  she  owed  all  her  little  ac- 
ceptances— secured  her  a  regular  monthly  column  on  a 
Wicklow  paper.  "  It  will  clothe  her,"  Mrs.  Trathbye 
said  to  the  girls  ;  and  Caroline,  who  was  always 
clothed  rather  than  dressed,  compiled  "  pars  "  about 


90  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

etiquette,  fashion,  and  food.  She  did  give  a  little  to 
household  expenses  and  so,  later,  did  Essie  and  Kath- 
leen, trained  as  typists  :  but  Mrs.  Trathbye,  in  her 
eagerness  to  dominate,  spoke  always  of  her  fifty 
pounds  as  if  it  were  their  whole  income.  They  had 
moved  to  a  slightly  larger  flat  when  Kathleen  had 
begun  to  earn.  Drusilla  was  "  at  home."  She  had  been 
for  a  year  and  a  half  in  a  situation  in  an  art  shop, 
where  she  had  learned  some  needlework  and  mar- 
queterie  staining  ;  and,  as  she  had  a  talent  for  design 
and  colouring,  her  prospects  had  been  good.  But  her 
mother  had  suddenly  and  inexplicably  removed  her 
from  the  shop.  A  family  silence  shrouded  this 
incident. 

It  was  now  seventeen  years  since  the  Trathbyes  had 
left  Ireland  ;  and  during  these  years  John  had  been 
occupied  in  losing  the  poor  sums  that  he  had  inherited. 
He  was  still  the  owner  of  the  row  of  huddled  cottages 
in  Croaghnaihill,  County  Galway.  He  had  passed 
frantically  from  lawsuit  to  lawsuit  in  his  attempts  to 
show  that  the  land  could  not  belong  to  the  persons 
who  had  purchased  it.  There  was  a  desperate  fore- 
boding of  the  time  when  "  family  "  should  count  for 
nothing,  in  his  yielding  to  circumstances  so  far  as  to 
search  for  a  post :  but  he  could  find  none  suitable  to 
John  Trathbye,  whose  forefathers  had  all  been  gentle- 
men. Besides,  the  poor  fellow  could  do  nothing  ex- 
cept ride  sublimely.  He  had  been  educated  to  the 
idea  that  the  word  "  family  "  is  symbolic  of  a  sacred 
fact.  It  had  not  occurred  to  him  that  it  would  be  wise, 
even  at  his  age,  to  learn  to  do  something  and  to  make 
a  living  by  his  own  efforts.  He  preferred  to  stay  in  a 
place  in  which  he  was  known,  respectfully  spoken  to, 
and  occasionally  blessed.  The  delusion  that  "  John 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   91 

Trathbye  "  stood  for  some  eternal  truth,  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  great  Mystery  of  Blood,  kept  him  from 
realising  that  he  was  a  jaded  man,  shabby,  with 
countrified  clothes  and  dirty  nails  ;  lounging  at  corners 
with  drivers  and  grooms,  drinking  in  the  forlorn  inn, 
playing  cards  with  the  red-eyed  wheezing  old  canon 
who  officiated  in  the  little  Episcopalian  Church.  John 
stayed  at  Croaghnaihill,  living  meagrely  in  the  two- 
storied  cottage  at  the  end  of  the  row,  running  up  bills 
at  the  single  local  shop,  writing  to  his  mother  and 
sisters  for  "  loans." 

That  John  might  not  stay  at  Croaghnaihill  was, 
indeed,  just  one  of  the  things  that  Drusilla  and  her 
sisters  feared.  In  their  childhood  they  had  thought  of 
him  as  a  matter  for  pride.  Copying  then*  mother, 
they  had  talked  about  their  property  in  Ireland  and 
their  big  brother  there.  Then,  as  Drusilla  grew  older, 
she  had  been  more  and  more  transpierced  by  the  sense 
of  inconsistencies  in  her  mother's  speeches.  Mrs. 
Trathbye  had  humour,  and  it  played  the  devil  with 
her  sometimes,  freakishly,  suddenly,  in  the  midst  of 
her  solemn  humbugging.  She  must  break  out  into 
mockery  of  the  family  property — the  six  one-storied 
cottages  and  the  tall  two-storied  one,  facing  the  bare 
climbing  road,  the  dry-stone  wall,  and  the  purple  moor 
at  Croaghnaihill.  Drusilla  had  a  distinct  enough 
memory  of  the  poor  place  :  she  had  often  sat  on  that 
wall,  with  the  westering  sun  on  her  face  and  its  nimbus 
of  hair,  and,  looking  over  the  moor  to  the  shrill  silver 
streak  of  the  sea,  had  dreamed  and  wondered. 

For  years  she  had  thought  of  John  as  a  big  hand- 
some fellow.  Aunt  Caroline,  even  more  than  Mrs. 
Trathbye  herself,  spoke  emotionally  of  his  good  looks, 
his  talents  and  charms. 


92  THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  John's  a  gentleman,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said,  as  if  it 
were  matter  for  tears.     "  John,  poor  fellow  !  "  was  an 
exclamation  to  which  the  girls  had  become  accus- 
tomed on  the  receipt  of  his  mournful  letters.     They 
had  formed  the  habit  of  standing  under   his   photo- 
graph admiring  it ;   partly  in  the  courtierism  of  chil- 
dren desiring  to  be  in  favour  with  their  elders,  partly 
because  the  barrenness  of  their  lives  demanded  the 
forcing  of  some  sort  of  blossom  of  idealism.     It  was  in 
a  mood  of  rebellion,  when  she  had  been  slapped  and 
thrust  from  her  mother's  presence,  that  Drusilla  had 
first  questioned  John's  beauty.     Standing  under  his 
picture  she  had  found  him  long-faced  and  small-eyed 
and  had  exulted  in  the  daring  heresy.     Mrs.  Trathbye 
had  a  habit  of  saying  that  Drusilla  was  not  at  all 
like  John,  and  the  girl  felt  that,  to  say  any  one  was 
like  John,  was,  in  Mrs.  Trathbye,  a  mark  of  love.  .  .  . 
.  .  .  Drusilla's  loss  of  faith  in  John  had  synchro- 
nised with  the  discovery  that  there  was  something  in 
her  own  appearance  that  made  her  mother  dislike  her. 
Oh,  sometimes,  only  sometimes  !  her  heart  protested. 
She  supposed  for  some  time  that  it  was  because  she 
had  red  hair.     She  had  heard  her  mother  say  once, 
with  a  bitter  rage,  that  an  evil-wisher  had  foretold 
that  she  should  have  a  red-haired  child  ;  and  Drusilla 
began  to  be  jealous  of  Essie  and  Kathleen  and  John 
because  their  hair  was  brown. 

But  the  power  of  John  waned  slowly.  His  visits  in 
those  early  days  had  been  festivities.  The  best  room 
in  the  house  was  given  up  to  him  ;  and  as  the  Trathbye 
girls  had  grown  up  and  their  demands  for  space  in- 
creased, the  sacrifices  made  for  him  became  more  and 
more  difficult  and  obvious.  Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Aunt 
Caroline  rejoiced  in  them  in  a  kind  of  religious  rapture. 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   93 

The  girls  acquiesced  in  them,  more  and  more  dully,  as 
they  emerged  from  their  childhood's  ignorance  and  ser- 
vility. They  saw  John  as  a  creature  little  interested 
in  them  and  not  interesting  to  them  ;  a  creature 
who  smoked  and  ate  and  drank  and  "  made  trouble," 
doing  nothing  in  exchange.  They  began  to  be  wary 
of  "  lending  a  few  shillings  to  poor  John."  They 
began  to  be  ashamed  of  his  queer  clothes  and  ill-cut 
hair  and  his  speech,  which  every  year  seemed  more  of 
a  brogue.  They  lost  belief  in  his  power  to  "  get  a  good 
berth  "  :  they  were  sceptical  about  his  letters  to  people 
who  "  might  be  useful  to  him."  It  was  a  relief  to 
them  that  he  came  more  seldom,  though  they  tried 
to  hide  the  guilty  feeling  when  they  saw  their  mother 
and  Aunt  Caroline  disappointed  and  weeping.  Drusilla 
especially  was  glad  when  John  did  not  come.  For, 
her  mother's  tyranny  having  refused  to  let  her  become 
a  business  girl,  she  must  see  John  in  the  most  ab- 
horrent intimacy — must  remove  the  littered  tray  after 
he  had  breakfasted  in  bed,  must  sort  out  his  soiled 
linen,  empty  his  hand-basin  with  bits  of  paper,  dabbed 
with  soap -froth  from  his  razor,  floating  on  the  water. 
.  .  .  Always,  Drusilla  could  make  herself  feel  sick  by 
recalling  John's  room  as  it  was  on  the  mornings  of  one 
of  his  visits — the  odour  of  tobacco,  the  pipe,  the  empty 
beer-bottle  from  the  night  before,  the  tumbled  bed, 
the  comic  papers  with  ugly  little  pictures.  She  had 
grown  more  and  more  resentful  at  the  sight  of  John 
eating — in  his  inelegant  manner — the  only  piece  of 
meat  or  fish  on  the  table,  while  his  female  relatives 
ate  potatoes  or  egg  sandwiches.  Essie  and  Kathleen 
shared  this  indignation  ;  but  they  were  more  cautious 
than  Drusilla,  less  sensuously  refined,  and  less  con- 
stantly witnesses  of  the  excesses  of  sex-worship 


94  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

practised  by  their  mother  and  Aunt  Caroline.  It  was 
therefore  at  her  eldest  daughter  that  Mrs.  Trathbye 
looked  in  defiance  as  she  said  : 

"  Poor  John.  .  .  .  He'll  not  be  able  to  come  to  us 
this  summer." 

Kathleen  and  Essie  looked  relieved  :  their  holidays 
began  in  a  few  days,  and  they  had  been  saving  money 
out  of  their  salaries.  They  avoided  each  other's  eyes, 
but  their  mouths  relaxed  into  pleasantness. 

"  Poor  John,  things  aren't  going  very  brightly  with 
him,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said,  wiping  her  eyes.  The  girls 
became  slightly  depressed  ;  and  Aunt  Caroline,  with 
an  air  of  considering  other  people's  feelings,  put  her 
own  letter  under  her  plate. 

"  Has  he  heard  anything  about  that  situation  ?  " 
Drusilla  ventured,  for  the  sake  of  seeming  interested 
in  John. 

"  Ah— agh !  "  Mrs.  Trathbye  uttered  fiercely.  "  He's 
as  anxious  to  get  a  situation,  poor  fellow,  as  you  are 
for  him  to  get  one.  A  person  would  think,  to  hear  you 
talk,  that  he  was  going  through  all  this  for  amusement." 

"  People  that  dp  nothing  always  talk  in  that  way," 
Aunt  Caroline  said. 

Tears  came  into  Drusilla's  eyes ;  for  her  obstinate 
sensitiveness  survived  the  roughest  treatment.  Essie, 
with  a  suggestion  of  sympathy  in  her  face — they  had 
a  common  cause  against  John — offered  her  sister  a 
piece  of  toast. 

"  I  made  that  for  t/<m,"  Aunt  Caroline  said. 

"  Well,  I  haven't  time  to  eat  it,"  Essie  said  as  she 
rose,  glancing  at  the  clock. 

Aunt  Caroline  made  her  absurd  little  shoulder- 
lifting  movement,  and  muttered  as  her  habit  was.  A 
few  words  came  articulately  ..."  something  else  to 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   95 

do  than  be  making  toast  for  people  that  have  nothing 
to  do  "  .  .  .  "  getting  up  in  the  morning  to  make 
toast  for  people  "  .  .  .  "  going  down  on  my  knees  at 
the  fire,  and  burning  all  my  face,  this  broiling  weather, 
to  make  toast.  .  .  ." 

"  John  says  he  went  into  Dublin  last  Friday  about 
that  position,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  in  quite  a  lively 
tone.  She  read  on  and  began  to  laugh.  "  He  says 
Moir's  Hotel  was  dreadfully  full  and  he  had  to  sleep 
on  a  horsehair  sofa  in  another  man's  room.  He  says 
the  man  was  a  publican." 

"  Mercy  1  "  Kathleen  said. 

Aunt  Caroline  took  her  letter  from  under  her  plate, 
and  fingered  it,  flushing  and  looking  wistfully.  No 
one  asking  a  question,  she  turned  to  Mrs.  Trathbye. 

"  This  is  an  invitation  to  Lady  Cairne's  garden- 
party,"  Aunt  Caroline  said  with  a  self-conscious  shake 
of  her  head. 

"  Mercy  !  "  Kathleen  exclaimed,  ironical. 

Aunt  Caroline  began  to  laugh  :  she  was  fluttered 
and  exalted. 

"  It's  as  representative  of  The  Lady's  Circle"  she 
said,  when  they  had  all  examined  the  card  and  Mrs. 
Trathbye  had  read  it  aloud. 

"  '  In  aid  of  the  Friends  of  the  Helpless,'  "  Mrs. 
Trathbye  repeated.  "  What  is  that,  Caroline  ?  " 

"  It's  some  kind  of  society  for  encouraging  kindness 
to  animals,"  Aunt  Caroline  said. 

"  Mr.  Quentin  belongs  to  it,"  Drusilla  said. 

"  Some  kind  of  mad  thing,  I  suppose,"  Mrs.  Trath- 
bye said  with  a  teasing  laugh.  "  Goodbye  !  Good- 
bye, darling  !  "  she  shouted  in  response  to  Essie  and 
Kathleen.  The  door  slammed  behind  them,  the 
letter-box  clanking. 


96  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

"  What  in  the  living  earth  are  you  going  to  wear, 
Caroline  ?  "  Mrs.  Trathbye  exclaimed  rather  than 
asked  with  a  solemn  devoutness.  Drusilla  was  listen- 
ing, interested  :  she  sat  at  the  table,  facing  the  two 
other  women.  The  radiance  of  sleep  and  dreams  still 
lingered  about  her  :  her  cheeks  and  eyes  were  bright : 
the  splendid  hair,  loosely  tied  with  a  blue  ribbon, 
was  fluffy  and  sunlit. 

"  I  can't  go,"  Aunt  Caroline  said.  "  How  can  I 
go  ?  I  haven't  a  stitch  to  put  on  me." 

"  Of  course  we  all  knew  you'd  say  that,"  Mrs. 
Trathbye  jeered.  "  You've  as  much  as  any  of  us 
here." 

"  I  wasn't  saying  anything  about  that,"  Aunt 
Caroline  said.  "  We've  all  little  enough,  I'm  sure." 
Her  voice  shook  and  she  wiped  her  eyes.  Mrs. 
Trathbye  began  to  laugh  and  Drusilla  could  not  help 
joining  her. 

"  Your  grey  dress  ought  to  do,  Aunt  Carlie," 
Drusilla  said,  compunctious,  as  Aunt  Caroline  com- 
pletely broke  down.  "  If  you'd  a  new  hat.  .  .  ." 

"  Agh,  I've  no  money  to  be  getting  new  hats," 
Aunt  Caroline  said.  The  exact  amount  of  her 
earnings  was  hidden  from  her  family,  and  she  always 
declared  that  she  had  "  no  money."  "  My  grey 
dress  isn't  fit  to  be  seen." 

"  Could  you  wear  my  biscuit-coloured  costume  ?  " 
Drusilla  asked.  "  I'll  lend  it  to  you." 

For  a  moment,  Aunt  Caroline's  peaked  little  face 
lighted  up  :  then  she  said  :  "  Agh,  I  could  live  in  it !  " 
Aunt  Caroline,  for  some  occult  reason,  was  proud  of 
her  leanness. 

"  You  might  make  it  do,  Caroline,"  Mrs.  Trathbye 
suggested.  "  It's  good-natured  of  her  to  offer  you 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   97 

the  loan  of  it.  Not  that  she's  very  careful  of  her 
clothes,"  she  added,  qualifying  the  commendation. 
"  You'd  think  she'd  had  that  costume  ten  years 
instead  of  one." 

"  I've  had  it  nearly  three  years  I  "  Drusilla  blazed 
out.  "  Aunt  Carlie  needn't  take  it  if  she  doesn't 
want  it.  It's  far  too  long,  of  course." 

"I'll  try  it  on,"  Aunt  Caroline  said,  rather  alarmed 
at  the  idea  of  the  offer  being  withdrawn. 

The  biscuit-coloured  costume — a  ready-made,  be- 
stowed on  Drusilla  with  many  warnings  and  moral- 
isings — looked  absurd  on  Aunt  Caroline's  little  figure, 
narrow-chested,  long-necked,  round-shouldered.  She 
was  singularly  uncritical  of  her  own  appearance  and 
would  have  worn  the  thing  :  but  Drusilla  was  almost 
frenzied  in  her  efforts  to  prevent  it ;  and  Mrs.  Trath- 
bye,  after  animatedly  contradicting  her  daughter, 
gave  it  as  her  own  opinion  that  Caroline  would  be 
a  fright  in  the  coat  and  skirt. 

Aunt  Caroline  resigned  herself  to  wearing  her  own 
thin  black  costume,  buying  a  lace  jabot  for  the  neck. 
She  had  a  dreadful  sun-damaged  old  toque  that  she 
wore  with  the  blacks  on  Sundays.  Drusilla — who  had 
a  very  pretty  knack  in  trimming  a  hat — offered  to  re- 
make the  toque.  But  her  mother  flouted  the  sug- 
gestion. "  She'd  never  finish  it,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said 
to  Aunt  Caroline.  "  She'd  just  take  it  to  pieces  and 
leave  it  for  some  one  else  to  put  together  again.  ..." 
Yet  in  the  evening  they  gave  the  toque  to  Kathleen, 
who  took  it  to  pieces  and  dusted  it,  then  went  here 
and  there  seeking  suitable  needles  and  thread  and  "  a 
bit  of  something  "  for  the  renovation  of  the  toque. 
Finally,  after  heating  attempts,  she  lost  her  temper 
and  left  the  thing  in  a  heap  on  the  parlour  table  ; 

o 


98  THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

and  Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Essie  found  Aunt  Caroline 
late  at  night,  blind  with  crying,  and  the  three  of  them 
botched  the  straw  and  silk  and  the  bunch  of  blue 
plums  into  something  that  was  worse  than  what  the 
toque  had  been,  but  different.  .  .  . 

II 

It  was  of  these  and  other  trivial  things  that  Drusilla 
was  thinking  on  a  day  in  August,  the  day  of  the  garden- 
party.  She  sat  in  the  kitchen,  which  was  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  tall  tenement  building,  and,  at  this 
hour  in  the  afternoon,  lighted  evenly  with  a  clear 
greyness.  Sounds  from  the  flats  alongside  and  below 
and  from  the  stairs  came  through  the  frail  walls.  The 
window  gave  a  view  of  a  back-green  with  red-brick 
outhouses  roofed  with  concrete  ;  and  beyond  that  the 
back-gardens,  leafy  and  flowery,  of  villas  in  a  higher 
street.  Mrs.  Trathbye,  with  a  sick  headache,  was  in 
bed,  and  Drusilla  was  watching  the  brown  enamelled 
kettle  on  the  gas-ring.  She  was  fond  of  cosy  chairs, 
but  avoided  the  old  rocking-chair  just  as  she  avoided 
the  touch  of  Aunt  Caroline  herself.  Drusilla  sat  on  a 
wooden  stool,  her  hands  clasped  round  her  knee,  and 
her  higher  foot,  in  a  blue  stocking  and  neat  cheap 
black  velvet  slipper,  slowly  swinging  to  and  fro.  Her 
eye  for  effect,  her  joy  in  her  own  person,  co-operated 
with  her  beauty ;  it  was  wonderfully  easy  for  her 
to  look  "  dressed."  Her  two-year-old  print  dress, 
blue  finely  speckled  with  white,  and  the  vivid  hues 
of  her  head  and  face  had  a  luminous  effect  in  the 
quiet  clean  kitchen,  barely  furnished  and  greyly 
lighted. 

Essie  and  Kathleen  were  enjoying  their  holidays, 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS   99 

boarding  at  a  farm-house  in  Arran,  paying  for  the 
change  with  money  saved  during  the  working  months 
of  going  to  and  fro,  in  heat  and  chill,  in  rain  and  fog  ; 
of  catching  cold  on  the  platforms  of  overcrowded 
electric  cars,  of  eating  insufficient  lunches  in  tea-rooms. 
Drusilla  herself  had  had  a  little  "  change,"  a  visit  of 
a  fortnight  to  friends  at  Portobello  :  it  had  cost 
nothing  but  the  price  of  her  ticket,  it  had  been  a  little 
slow,  but  ..."  You  ought  to  be  glad  of  the  chance," 
Aunt  Carlie  had  said.  "  Other  people  have  to  pay 
for  their  holidays  and  get  a  lot  of  clothes  ready." 
Drusilla' s  grave  red  mouth  widened  in  a  laugh,  as  she 
thought  of  the  preparations  made  by  Kathleen  and 
Essie,  the  merry  shifts,  the  jests  and  hopefulness  of 
pleasure,  the  joy  in  the  money  safe  from  John's 
rapacity.  In  holiday-time  Essie  and  Kathleen  seemed 
just  two  dear  jolly  girls,  piteous  in  their  endeavours. 
If  they  were  on  holiday  for  a  much  larger  proportion 
of  their  time  ?  If  somebody — somehow — could  seize 
on  their  lives  and  carry  them  away  from  out  of  the 
vortex  of  drudgeries  ?  .  .  .  Aunt  Caroline,  too,  ap- 
peared as  a  creature  clamant  for  rescue  :  Drusilla's 
lips  again  suddenly  lost  their  beautiful  curve  of 
mournfulness.  It  was  laughable,  the  memory  of 
Aunt  Caroline  as  she  had  been  this  afternoon  in  the 
madness  of  her  preparation,  in  the  dumb  excitement 
of  her  exit.  The  emptiness  of  the  old  rocking-chair, 
the  sight  of  Aunt  Caroline's  account-book  and 
fountain-pen  on  the  topmost  of  the  three  little  book- 
shelves on  the  kitchen  wall,  made  Drusilla  realise  how 
seldom  Aunt  Caroline  went  anywhere.  There  was 
pathos  in  the  account-book,  from  which  a  certain 
number  of  leaves  were  neatly  torn  for  the  rough  copies 
of  the  column  in  The  Lady's  Circle.  It  was  amazing 


100          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

that  any  paper  should  print  such  rubbish,  botched 
together  and  regularly  despatched  with  a  painstaking 
faithfulness.  .  .  .  Drusilla  visualised  Aunt  Caroline 
at  the  garden-party,  taking  notes,  absurdly  cowed  and 
servile,  clad  in  her  frowsy  black  and  that  travesty  of 
a  toque,  with  long  protruding  hat-pins.  Mrs.  Trath- 
bye  regarded  her  sister-in-law's  work  with  a  mingling 
of  shame  and  complacency  :  it  was  "  lady's  "  work 
and  insured  them  against  the  disgrace  of  Caroline's 
seeking  of  menial  situations  :  but  even  Mrs.  Trathbye, 
with  her  ignorance  of  life  and  her  sensitiveness  to 
the  hypnotism  of  words,  felt  that  the  phrases  "  jour- 
nalistic capacity,"  "  literary  work,"  and  "  correspon- 
dent of  The  Lady's  Circle"  did  not  succeed  in  creating 
the  illusion  that  Caroline  was  a  dignified  social  unit. 
Yet  she  had  a  kind  of  dignity.  Drusilla  realised 
this,  vaguely  and  suddenly,  as  her  gaze,  swooping 
towards  the  now  singing  kettle,  paused  again  on  the 
lank  account-book  and  the  fountain-pen.  There  was 
a  little  space  allotted  to  these  articles  in  a  house  in 
which  space  was  a  thing  for  which  people  fought. 
She  thought  of  scores  of  instances  in  which  her  mother, 
her  sisters,  and  her  aunt  had  seemed  to  form  a  com- 
bine to  oppose  the  housing  of  her  little  properties — 
her  books,  her  work-basket,  her  drawing-board,  her 
hat-box.  Tears  came  childishly,  as  she  told  herself 
that  it  was  unfair  to  blame  her  for  not  "  taking  an 
interest  "  in  her  clothes  when  she  was  not  allowed 
even  a  peg  in  a  wardrobe  or  cupboard,  but  must  keep 
her  garments  which  she  loved  in  a  dreadful  crumpling 
old  basket.  Essie  and  Kathleen  were  granted  space 
for  their  dresses  and  coats,  their  boots  and  work, 
their  fancies  and  experiments  in  hat-dyeing  or  potting 
plants.  But  Drusilla  was  afraid  even  to  wash  her 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS     101 

handkerchiefs  unless  Aunt  Caroline  and  her  mother 
were  out. 

"  It's  because  they  earn  money,"  Drusilla  thought. 
"  Aunt  Caroline  earns  money.  .  .  .  Only  a  little  .  .  . 
but  it  goes  on  coming."  Then,  illuminative,  came 
the  thought :  "  People  never  respect  you  unless  you're 
earning  money.  It's  the  basis  ...  in  all  sorts  of 
human  intercourse."  Drusilla  exulted  in  this  ex- 
pression :  she  was,  then,  becoming  consciously 
articulate  as  the  result  of  her  studies  and  the  dis- 
cussions at  the  Eire  Club,  the  conversations  during 
the  walks  home.  "  Right  economic  relations  ..." 
The  phrase  came  to  her,  jostling  others,  such  as 
"  cubic  space,"  "  right  of  a  human  being  to  a  place 
in  society."  She  had  struggled  through  an  oppressive 
pamphlet  by  a  German  Socialist — a  book  which  Miss 
Morland  had  recommended  to  her  and  lent,  with 
uncut  leaves.  Drusilla  remembered  that  this  German 
Socialist  had  said  that  there  were  only  two  great  kin- 
dred problems — Wage-earning  and  the  Sex  Problem. 

Wage-earning — money — the  power  to  make  one's 
own  living,  to  be  able  to  buy  lovely  clothes  and  pay 
for  a  place  in  which  to  keep  them  daintily.  One 
could  have  nothing  without  paying  for  it.  ...  But 
Wage-earning  was  not  all.  According  to  the  German 
Socialist,  there  was  also  the  Sex  Problem. 

Drusilla,  seated  on  the  stool,  was  thinking  intensely. 
It  was  strange,  for  example,  that  just  now  she  should 
have  seen  Aunt  Caroline,  Essie,  and  Kathleen  as 
pitiable  creatures  whose  cases  cried  for  rescue  ;  while, 
almost  in  the  same  moment,  their  economic  soundness 
should  have  appeared  to  her,  the  validity  of  their 
claim  to  house-room  and  to  the  respect  of  their  fellows. 
If  Wage-earning  were  the  only  problem,  then  Aunt 


102          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Caroline,  Essie,  and  Kathleen  were  enviable  to  her. 
But  the  presence  of  the  Sex  Problem  might  do  some- 
thing to  remove  the  apparent  inconsistency  ?  The 
German  Socialist  had  said  that  the  Sex  Problem  was 
inseparable  from  the  Wage-earning  Problem.  .  .  . 
Dmsilla  tried  to  focus  the  light  rays  streaming  from 
this  enormous  fact  so  that  they  might  make  clear  her 
own  little  life. 

She  was  beginning  to  understand,  she  thought. 
Economically,  her  position  was  inferior  to  Essie's,  to 
Kathleen's,  even  to  Aunt  Caroline's  :  but  sexually 
she  was  their  superior.  .  .  .  How  had  that  old  German 
made  out  that  there  was  a  necessary  connection 
between  sex  and  money  ?  She  remembered  some  of 
the  things  he  had  said,  so  new  to  her  that  her  wonder 
and  interest  had  absorbed  her  :  she  had  had  no  room 
for  horror.  .  .  .  He  had  spoken  of  women's  beauty 
as  a  thing  that  could  be  bought  and  sold  ;  he  had 
called  women's  bodies  "  Capital." 

Drusilla  rose  startled  by  a  sound  somewhere.  It 
may  have  been  only  the  squealing  of  a  pulley  in  the 
flat  below  ;  but  it  sounded  so  like  a  moan  that  she 
went  to  her  mother's  room. 

"  Mother,  are  you  all  right  ?   Did  you  call  ?  " 

"  Ah,  how  can  you  ask  if  I'm  all  right  ?  "  Mrs. 
Trathbye  muttered.  She  was  lying  in  a  mass  of 
crushed  pillows  and  twisted  bedclothes.  The  windows 
had  been  shut  to  keep  out  the  relentless  noises  of  the 
streets — the  shouts  of  a  vendor  of  "  Veec-tor-ee-a 
plums  !  "  the  jingle  of  a  madly  driven  milk-cart,  the 
screeching  laughter  of  a  group  of  message  boys  and 
girls. 

"  Can't  I  go  out  and  get  you  something  ?  "  Drusilla 
asked,  coming  near  to  the  bed,  longing  for  the  right  to 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS  103 

tend  and  fondle  her  mother.  ..."  It's  awfully  light," 
she  went  on,  looking  at  the  pale  green  canvas  blind 
suffused  in  sunshine — "  I  might  put  something  up." 

She  brought  a  screen  from  the  parlour  and  placed 
it,  dark  and  tottering,  across  the  window.  Doing  this, 
she  caught  sight  of  her  figure  in  the  glass  of  the  ward- 
robe door — the  only  long  glass  in  the  Trathbyes'  flat. 
She  paused,  assuming  poses,  enjoying  the  beauties  of 
her  shape,  the  colours  seen  subduedly  in  the  dim 
light,  the  strong  blue  of  the  cotton  frock,  the  golds 
and  reds  of  the  hair.  She  heard  a  movement  in  the 
bed. 

"  That's  all  right :  go  away,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said 
in  the  tone  of  one  tortured.  "  Thanks,"  she  added 
gently. 

Drusilla  went  to  the  bedside  and  kissed  her.  Mrs. 
Trathbye's  face  was  hot  and  discoloured  :  her  hair 
was  scattered  about  it,  scanty,  a  mingling  of  fair  brown 
and  grey.  She  often  told  her  daughters  that,  in  her 
youth,  her  tresses,  of  a  bright  golden,  fell  to  her  knees  ; 
and  the  girls  pretended,  to  her,  to  each  other,  and 
each  to  herself,  that  the  thing  was  believed. 

Mrs.  Trathbye's  hot  lips  clung  to  Drusilla's. 

"  You're  a  good  girl — a  good  child,"  she  faltered 
hysterically. 

Drusilla  was  easily  moved  to  tears  :  she  went  back 
to  the  kitchen  crying,  full  of  ruth.  Lately — almost 
suddenly — it  had  become  possible  for  her  to  understand 
something  of  the  struggle  that  was  going  on  in  Mrs. 
Trathbye's  heart ;  and  her  mother's  life  took  on  the 
colour  of  tragedy.  Long  hair — even  apocryphally 
golden — long  golden  hair  and  all  those  other  beauties 
of  which  she  and  her  sisters  had  been  told  again  and 
again  at  bedtime  ;  and  her  mother's  career  as  the 


104          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

result  1  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  that  she  had  been  married 
at  nineteen,  though  the  statement  hardly  tallied  with 
her  accounts  of  many  pre-marital  love-affairs  and  a 
broken  engagement :  but  she  had  certainly  been 
married  while  she  was,  by  modern  standards,  a  young 
girl.  She  had  married  a  man  with  property,  a  man 
beyond  her  expectations  as  a  dowerless  orphan  of 
good  family.  She  spoke  reservedly,  with  a  modest 
cynicism,  of  men  and  marriage ;  and  Drusilla  had 
heard  her  mention  cases  of  passionate  love  seldom  and 
always  with  an  angry  abhorrence.  This  fear  of  facing 
the  question  of  love  was  the  only  sign  that  Mrs. 
Trathbye  had  ever  given  that  Love  was  a  thing  which, 
as  a  reality,  could  touch  her.  The  long  broken  un- 
coloured  years  of  her  life  had  passed  unlighted,  un- 
shaken by  Love.  She  had  never  done,  nor  inspired, 
anything  beautiful  or  wicked  and  strange.  It  seemed 
fitting  that  Aunt  Caroline,  Essie,  and  Kathleen, 
should  ask  of  life  only  varying  amounts  of  littleness  : 
but  Drusilla  felt  that  it  ought  to  have  been  different 
with  her  mother,  once  so  sweet  and  handsome,  still 
so  vivid  and  proud.  It  was  peculiarly  piteous  that 
these  sordid,  disproportionate  beggings  of  hers  should 
be  futile.  A  woman  to  whose  milky  throat  and  long 
shining  hah*  a  score  of  young  men  in  Ireland  had 
written  poems — and  this  alien  modern  city  jauntily 
offered  her  a  flat  in  a  slim-walled  tenement,  and  an 
insufficiency  of  food,  fire,  and  clothing. 

Drusilla  thought  sorrowfully  that  the  only  way  of 
ministering  to  her  mother  now  lay  hi  the  satisfying  of 
these  bodily  needs.  The  time  for  beauty  and  wicked- 
ness and  wonder  was  gone  :  the  only  improvement 
that  could  be  made  in  her  mother's  mental  atmosphere 
without  making  it  too  rarefied  for  her  present  self, 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS  105 

was  the  introduction  of  the  sense  of  social  safety  and 
the  modest  importance  that  comes  of  the  power  to 
run  up  accounts  and  engage  domestic  servants.  Mrs. 
Trathbye  was  no  longer  ambitious  save  to  have 
"  enough  to  come  and  go  on  "  :  she  had  lost  much  of 
her  personal  daintiness.  She  would  (Drusilla  thought) 
be  contented  with  a  little  more  room,  a  little  more 
food  and  fuel  and  clothing ;  and  she  ought  to  have 
a  good  doctor  and  an  occasional  change  to  the  seaside 
or  the  country  :  she  ought  to  be  able  to  go  for  a  drive 
sometimes  and  to  the  play  of  which  she  had  once  been 
excitably  fond.  .  .  .  Was  that  all  ?  It  sounded  so 
"  practical." 

The  girls  too,  and  .  .  .  Aunt  Caroline.  So  little 
was  needed  to  make  them  much  happier  and,  con- 
sequently, much  more  agreeable  social  units.  Essie 
and  Kathleen  too  liked  the  theatre :  they  liked 
dancing,  and  tennis,  and  reading  novels,  and  lying  in 
cosy  chairs  by  the  fire  :  they  were  easily  satisfied  in 
such  matters  as  dress  and  social  intercourse.  Drusilla, 
adding  up  the  family  earnings,  concluded  that,  if  she 
could  gain  a  salary  twice  as  big  as  Essie's  or  Kath- 
leen's, it  would  lift  them  over  the  line  between  the 
thing  called  economy  and  the  thing  called  comfort. 
They  could  keep  a  servant ! 

But  she  could  not  get  a  salary.  Her  mind  paused 
on  the  thought,  with  a  sense  of  something  left  out. 
Just  now,  in  her  loving,  sentimental  mood,  she  did 
not  want  to  realise  how  and  why  she  had  been  left 
incapable  of  earning  what  the  Socialist  called  a 
"  living  wage."  There  were  things  in  her  life  that 
she  must  leave  wilfully  uncomprehended  if  she  was 
going  to  feel  tender  and  happy  and  protective  to  her 
family.  And  she  needed  to  feel  so  :  her  heart  was  too 


108          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

quarter's  rent,  and  the  necessity  of  emptying  ash-pans. 
She  had  since  her  childhood  breathed  in  an  atmosphere 
of  unconscious  cynicism  regarding  everything  poetic- 
ally fine ;  and,  since  her  heart  must  have  fine  things 
to  feed  on,  she  had  learned  to  go,  when  she  was  hungry, 
to  a  place  of  dreams  where  she  was  fed.  Her  dreams, 
but  Michael  Quentin's  realities  !  At  any  rate,  "  which- 
ever was  which,"  a  quite  distinct  line  in  Drusilla's 
consciousness  parted  them.  Her  own  dream  of  Love 
and  the  view  she  accepted  of  marriage  were,  in  her 
thoughts,  no  more  co-operative  than  were  the  ideal  of 
conduct  of  her  mother's  cherished  Prayer  Book  and 
the  morality  of  life  in  the  Trathbyes'  flat.  A  long 
course  of  snubbing,  of  under-feeding,  physical  and  in- 
tellectual, of  the  witnessing  of  failures,  blunderings, 
and  futilities,  had  inoculated  Drusilla  with  something 
of  the  family  hopelessness.  Her  mysteriously  strong 
vitality  fought  against  it,  as  did  her  deeply  hidden 
sense  that  she  had  really  come  into  the  world  for  the 
sake  of  an  unknown  divine  thing  to  be  found  :  but 
the  poison  worked  in  her  blood,  forbidding  her  to 
expect  anything  beautiful,  wicked,  and  wonderful — 
anything  that  was  not  petty  and  meagre.  Marriage, 
considered  in  what  Mrs.  Trathbye  would  have  called  a 
"  sane  "  way,  or  perhaps  a  "  nice  "  way — marriage 
was  a  change  for  the  better  in  one's  material  circum- 
stances. It  meant  that  one  was  supplied  with  a  house 
of  one's  own  and  with  housekeeping  money  ;  and  that 
one  had  dresses  and  presents  and  was  kissed  and  made 
much  of  and  handed  over  to  a  nice  good  man  who 
would  thereafter  take  care  of  one.  ...  Of  course 
Mrs.  Trathbye  would  stipulate  that  the  man  must  be 
nice  and  good  :  she  fiercely  condemned  men  and 
women  who  were  wicked — who  ran  away  with  wives 


THE  BUGLES   OF  THE   CHAMPIONS     109 

or  husbands,  who  stabbed  sweethearts,  or  flung 
themselves  into  the  river.  .  .  . 

Well !  .  .  .  Alexander  Cowie  was,  apparently,  a 
nice  good  man.  An  arch  smile  broke  up  the  serious- 
ness of  Drusilla's  face,  changing  its  sweet  bemusedness 
into  mirth.  It  had  become  clear  to  her  that  Cowie 
admired  her.  Since  their  dispute  he  had  written  her 
a  letter,  ostensibly  apologetic,  but  full  of  personal 
opinions  and  details.  He  had  written  again,  thanking 
her  for  replying,  sending  a  book :  he  had  called  to  leave 
another  book  one  day  when  she  had  been  out  in  the 
park  with  a  girl  friend,  a  neighbour's  daughter.  He 
was  shyly  anxious  to  walk  home  with  her  from  the 
meetings  of  the  Eire  Club. 

Suppose  she  were  to  marry — not  exactly  Alick 
Cowie,  of  course,  but  some  one  very  like  him  ?  Her 
fancy  carelessly  hailed  the  idea,  appearing  and  re- 
appearing in  the  mists  of  her  half-formed  thoughts  : 
she  allowed  it  to  develop,  for  the  first  time,  into  a 
thing  that  it  was  permissible  to  imagine.  She  shrank 
from  certain  details  and,  inconsistently,  was  boldly 
realistic  regarding  others.  Thus  she  pleased  herself 
with  rehearsing  the  words  of  her  fictional  reply  to 
Cowie's — or  the  man  like  Cowie's — fictional  declara- 
tion of  his  wish ;  but  she  flinched,  flushing,  from 
precise  wording  of  his  declaration  itself.  She  fancied 
his  gifts  to  her — bunches  of  pink  and  purple  sweet- 
peas  which  she  would  fasten  in  the  belt  of  this 
blue,  white- speckled  frock ;  boxes  containing  soft 
kid  gloves  and  embroidered  handkerchiefs ;  boxes 
of  chocolate  creams,  in  seductive  rows,  under 
fuzzy  mats  of  paper.  She  made  mental  pictures 
of  jaunts  with  him — sails  and  coach  drives  in  which 
one  or  more  of  her  relatives  might  share,  visits 


108          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

quarter's  rent,  and  the  necessity  of  emptying  ash-pans. 
She  had  since  her  childhood  breathed  in  an  atmosphere 
of  unconscious  cynicism  regarding  everything  poetic- 
ally fine  ;  and,  since  her  heart  must  have  fine  things 
to  feed  on,  she  had  learned  to  go,  when  she  was  hungry, 
to  a  place  of  dreams  where  she  was  fed.  Her  dreams, 
but  Michael  Quentin's  realities  !  At  any  rate,  "  which- 
ever was  which,"  a  quite  distinct  line  in  Drusilla's 
consciousness  parted  them.  Her  own  dream  of  Love 
and  the  view  she  accepted  of  marriage  were,  in  her 
thoughts,  no  more  co-operative  than  were  the  ideal  of 
conduct  of  her  mother's  cherished  Prayer  Book  and 
the  morality  of  life  in  the  Trathbyes'  flat.  A  long 
course  of  snubbing,  of  under-feeding,  physical  and  in- 
tellectual, of  the  witnessing  of  failures,  blunderings, 
and  futilities,  had  inoculated  Drusilla  with  something 
of  the  family  hopelessness.  Her  mysteriously  strong 
vitality  fought  against  it,  as  did  her  deeply  hidden 
sense  that  she  had  really  come  into  the  world  for  the 
sake  of  an  unknown  divine  thing  to  be  found  :  but 
the  poison  worked  in  her  blood,  forbidding  her  to 
expect  anything  beautiful,  wicked,  and  wonderful — 
anything  that  was  not  petty  and  meagre.  Marriage, 
considered  in  what  Mrs.  Trathbye  would  have  called  a 
"  sane  "  way,  or  perhaps  a  "  nice  "  way — marriage 
was  a  change  for  the  better  in  one's  material  circum- 
stances. It  meant  that  one  was  supplied  with  a  house 
of  one's  own  and  with  housekeeping  money  ;  and  that 
one  had  dresses  and  presents  and  was  kissed  and  made 
much  of  and  handed  over  to  a  nice  good  man  who 
would  thereafter  take  care  of  one.  ...  Of  course 
Mrs.  Trathbye  would  stipulate  that  the  man  must  be 
nice  and  good  :  she  fiercely  condemned  men  and 
women  who  were  wicked — who  ran  away  with  wives 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS  109 

or  husbands,  who  stabbed  sweethearts,  or  flung 
themselves  into  the  river.  .  .  . 

Well !  .  .  .  Alexander  Cowie  was,  apparently,  a 
nice  good  man.  An  arch  smile  broke  up  the  serious- 
ness of  Drusilla's  face,  changing  its  sweet  bemusedness 
into  mirth.  It  had  become  clear  to  her  that  Cowie 
admired  her.  Since  their  dispute  he  had  written  her 
a  letter,  ostensibly  apologetic,  but  full  of  personal 
opinions  and  details.  He  had  written  again,  thanking 
her  for  replying,  sending  a  book :  he  had  called  to  leave 
another  book  one  day  when  she  had  been  out  in  the 
park  with  a  girl  friend,  a  neighbour's  daughter.  He 
was  shyly  anxious  to  walk  home  with  her  from  the 
meetings  of  the  Eire  Club. 

Suppose  she  were  to  marry — not  exactly  Alick 
Cowie,  of  course,  but  some  one  very  like  him  ?  Her 
fancy  carelessly  hailed  the  idea,  appearing  and  re- 
appearing in  the  mists  of  her  half-formed  thoughts  : 
she  allowed  it  to  develop,  for  the  first  time,  into  a 
thing  that  it  was  permissible  to  imagine.  She  shrank 
from  certain  details  and,  inconsistently,  was  boldly 
realistic  regarding  others.  Thus  she  pleased  herself 
with  rehearsing  the  words  of  her  fictional  reply  to 
Cowie's — or  the  man  like  Cowie's — fictional  declara- 
tion of  his  wish ;  but  she  flinched,  flushing,  from 
precise  wording  of  his  declaration  itself.  She  fancied 
his  gifts  to  her — bunches  of  pink  and  purple  sweet- 
peas  which  she  would  fasten  in  the  belt  of  this 
blue,  white-speckled  frock ;  boxes  containing  soft 
kid  gloves  and  embroidered  handkerchiefs ;  boxes 
of  chocolate  creams,  in  seductive  rows,  under 
fuzzy  mats  of  paper.  She  made  mental  pictures 
of  jaunts  with  him — sails  and  coach  drives  in  which 
one  or  more  of  her  relatives  might  share,  visits 


110          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

to  the  theatre,  dances.  She  would  always,  or  nearly 
always,  insist  on  one  of  the  others  going  too  :  that  was 
"  nice."  She  would  tell  Cowie — the  young  man  like 
Cowie — to  dance  with  Essie  and  Kathleen  and  to 
introduce  his  friends  to  them ;  and  she  happily 
visualised  herself  and  her  sisters,  warm-cheeked  and 
twinkling-footed,  in  their  white  frocks.  ...  It  was 
not  at  all  difficult  to  fit  a  figure  like  Cowie's  into  such 
scenes.  Cowie  "  composed  "  quite  well  with  the  life 
with  which  she  was  familiar  and  the  people  whom  she 
knew.  Cowie  had  already  said  :  "  Your  aunt  seems 
a  good-natured  old  body  "  ;  had  asked  Drusilla  if  her 
sisters  went  to  "  business,"  and  was  simple  and  casual 
in  his  allusions  to  milkmen  and  high  teas.  To  con- 
front him  with  bare  soapy  arms  would  not  astound 
him.  Drusilla's  family  would  have  a  sense  of  con- 
descending to  the  Cowies.  There  would  be  no  strain- 
ing, no  necessity  for  repulsive  little  concealments  ; 
and  his  standards  of  morality  and  refinement — not, 
it  seemed,  exhaustingly  high — would  allow  of  little 
inferiorities  to  which  she  had  become  accustomed. 
Cowie  himself  would  (she  thought)  see  no  harm  in  her 
getting  presents  out  of  him — he  would  smile  at  the 
pretty  femininity  and  childishness  of  it.  ...  It 
would  be  all  sensible  and  nice  and  sisterly  and  daugh- 
terly and — Drusilla's  smile  came  again  at  the  suggested 
word — "  niecely."  It  would  set  her  free  and  give  the 
others  more  room  and  more  food,  she  supposed  ;  and 
it  would  make  them  very  kind  to  her  :  people  in  the 
novels  and  ladies'  journals  were  always  tender  and 
smiley  to  a  girl  about  to  be  married.  And  the  demands 
of  the  man  like  Cowie  would  be  easy  to  fulfil.  A  nice 
decent  young  man  with  those  mysterious  solid  qualities 
which  were  said  to  last  long  after  passion  had  fluttered 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE   CHAMPIONS     111 

itself  to  death.  .  .  .  There  was  no  room  for  Love  in 
a  tenement !  It  meant  the  soiling  and  breaking  of 
his  wing-feathers. 

Drusilla  rose  quickly,  not  noticing  that  the  kettle 
had  begun  to  boil.  Crossing  the  kitchen  and  hall  she 
thought  that  she  heard  again,  twice  repeated,  the 
sound  of  a  moan.  She  listened,  standing  exquisitely 
poised  and  glowing-haired,  in  the  wedge  of  light  from 
the  half -open  kitchen  door ;  and  the  sound  resolved 
itself  into  a  subdued  uncomfortable  cough.  It  was  so 
close  to  her  that  Drusilla  started  :  she  realised  that  it 
came  from  outside  the  hall-door  and  thought  of  hook- 
ing the  chain  or  turning  the  key.  "  Strange  man  " 
was,  in  the  Trathbye  household,  a  phrase  creative  of 
horrors  :  Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Aunt  Caroline  spoke 
with  a  bitter  pathos  of  their  unprotected  state.  "  If 
a  man  were  to  force  himself  in  at  that  hall-door  he 
might  do  what  he  liked  to  any  one  of  us  !  "  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said,  complaining  of  the  police  rates.  Aunt 
Caroline,  more  physically  courageous,  had  been  known 
to  rise  up  at  a  noise  heard  in  the  night  and  search, 
carrying  a  heavy  stick  and  "  trembling  from  head  to 
foot  and  with  my  heart  stopped  for  fully  a  minute  !  " 

Recollections  of  these  absurdities  made  Drusilla 
laugh  at  her  own  idea  of  securing  the  door.  The 
cough  came  again,  followed  by  a  timid  drag  at  the 
bell :  the  handle  groaned  in  its  socket  but  the  bell 
did  not  ring.  Another  cough  came,  stifled. 

"  It's  Mr.  Patullo,"  Drusilla  thought,  suddenly 
recognising  the  sound.  "  What  a  time  he  must  have 
been  poking  about  on  the  landing  !  " 

She  opened  the  door,  and  saw  old  Patullo  in  his 
fawn  coat  and  with  his  wretched  crush  hat  in  his 
hand. 


112          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

III 

**  Good  afternoon,  Miss  Trathbye :  it's  a  lovely 
afternoon,"  Patullo  said  in  his  propitiatory,  cultured 
voice. 

"  Yes,"  Drusilla  said. 

"  You're  all  quite  well  ?  Your  aunt  is  hard  at 
work  ?  I  should  like  a  little  talk  with  you  if  you  can 
spare  me  a  few  minutes." 

44  Will  you  come  in  ?  "  Drusilla  said,  wondering.  As 
they  entered  the  sitting-room  the  door  of  Mrs. 
Trathbye's  bedroom  creaked. 

"  Your  aunt  isn't  in  ?  "  Patullo  said,  when  he  was 
seated  in  the  decadent  leathern  arm-chair.  '4  It  is 
partly  on  her  account  I  called.  I  hope  you  will 
pardon  the  liberty  in  a  next-door  neighbour.  The 
fact  is,  I  think  I  can  put  some  more  journalistic  work 
in  your  aunt's  way." 

44  How  kind  of  you  !  "  Drusilla  exclaimed  warmly. 
She  had  been  thinking  that  Patullo  always  spoke  in 
correctly  constructed  sentences  and  wondering  if  this 
were  due  to  his  profession ;  and  she  had  been  noting 
the  delicacy  of  his  hands  and  the  two  long  festoons  of 
moustache  that  hung  down  at  the  sides  of  his  unhappy 
mouth.  He  sat  with  his  back  to  the  light  and  she 
was  glad  that  this  somewhat  blurred  his  face.  The 
dirtiness  of  his  clothing  offended  her,  so  that  there  was 
a  touch  of  compunction  in  her  acknowledgment  of  his 
kindness. 

"  Not  in  the  least,  Miss  Trathbye,"  he  said.  4'  In- 
deed, I  have  often  thought  of  asking  your  permission 
to  call,  since  you  told  me,  at  the  Eire,  that  your  aunt 
was  a  journalist.  I  have  a  good  many  friends  on 
various  papers,  you  know." 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS     118 

"  Yes,"  Brasilia  said,  having  heard  him  say  so 
often  at  the  club.  "  What  papers  ?  "  she  asked, 
suddenly  inspired. 

There  was  a  pause. 

"  Several  London  papers,"  Patullo  said.  "  And  I 
have  local  influence  as  well.  I  have  influence  with  a 
very  good  firm  of  publishers  in  London.  I  might  get 
your  aunt  some  translating  work  to  do.  Does  she 
know  French  and  German  or  Italian  ?  " 

"  No,"  Brasilia  said,  her  voice  shaking  to  a  laugh. 
Aunt  Caroline  had  been  educated  thirty-five  years  ago 
at  a  little  private  school  in  an  Irish  village  :  she  could 
"  conjugate  "  four  French  verbs  from  beginning  to 
end,  but  could  not  connect  them  with  any  other  parts 
of  speech. 

"  No  ?  That's  a  pity.  But  how  about  you  your- 
self?" 

Brasilia  shook  her  head. 

"  I  was  taken  away  from  school  when  I  was  four- 
teen," she  said  pathetically.  "  I  know  only  the 
rudiments.  I  had  such  a  nice  teacher." 

Patullo  looked  shocked. 

"  But  have  you  never  thought  of  doing  something 
in  journalism  yourself  ?  "  he  asked,  apparently  con- 
ceding that  that  was  a  thing  which  demanded  no 
schooling. 

;'  Yes,"  Brasilia  answered,  sparkling  with  excite- 
ment, "  I  should  like  it.  Funny,  just  before  you  came 
I  was  wishing  I  could  get  some  work.  ...  I  spoke  to 
my  mother  and  my  aunt  about  it  once  before  but  .  .  ." 

"  You  didn't  see  an  opening  ? "  Patullo  said, 
avoiding  her  eyes. 

"  They  didn't  want  it,"  Brasilia  said,  with  her 
puzzled,  woe-begone  air.  She  was  looking  at  Patullo 

H 


114          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

expectantly,  seeing  in  his  visit  a  suggestion  of  the 
truth  that  wishes  and  prayers  were  realities,  potent  to 
strive  with  depressing  material  things.  Patullo's  lids 
were  lowered  and  he  moved  in  his  seat  in  an  ashamed, 
agitated  way. 

"  I  might  get  you  some  work,"  he  muttered. 
"  Your  aunt  might  help  you  at  first,  or  she  and  you 
might  collaborate  for  a  while.  ..." 

Drusilla  checked  a  giggle.  "  I  shall  speak  to 
Quentin  about  it,"  Patullo  said  suddenly,  with  a  kind 
of  effrontery. 

Drusilla  stared  at  him. 

"  Quentin's  uncle  is  one  of  the  proprietors  of  The 
Teller  of  Tales"  Patullo  said.  It  was  a  London 
monthly  of  high  standing  and  Drusilla' s  dazzlement 
for  the  moment  obliterated  her  sense  of  the  futility 
and  impudence  of  an  offer  to  speak  to  Michael  Quentin 
on  her  behalf.  Why,  she  herself  knew  Michael 
Quentin  as  well  as  Patullo  did  !  There  was  a  sense  of 
escape  in  the  thought  that  Patullo  had  spoken  in 
Aunt  Caroline's  absence  :  for  Drusilla  shrank  quiver- 
ingly  from  the  idea  of  Michael  being  brought  into 
touch  with  her  home  life. 

"  But — do  you  know  Mr.  Quentin  very  well  ?  "  she 
asked  quickly.  It  was  not  possible  for  her  to  speak 
entirely  without  gentleness,  indeed  only  her  anger 
and  alarm  enabled  her  to  put  the  question  at  all : 
but  Patullo  flushed  and  his  white  pathetic  hands 
clasped  and  unclasped. 

"  My  name  has  been  known  to  Mr.  Quentin  for  a 
long  time,"  he  said.  "  I  have  had  ...  to  do  ... 
with  Mr.  Moore's  paper  also.  However,  I  mentioned 
Mr.  Quentin  as  only  one  of  many  possibilities.  .  .  . 
I  have  considerable  influence  in  ...  other  quarters. 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS     115 

The  question  is,  Miss  Trathbye,  if  you  yourself  think 
you  should  like  work,  or  if  your  aunt  thinks  of  ex- 
tending her  connection  ?  " 

"  I  should  like  it  very  much — I  wish  it  very  much," 
Drusilla  said  fervently.  There  was  a  hint  of  huffiness 
in  Patullo's  tone  and  she  blamed  herself  for  her  folly 
in  letting  this  possibly  Heaven-sent  chance  escape  her. 
".  .  .  But  I'm  afraid  I'm  not  qualified.  .  .  ." 

"  I  know  your  capabilities,"  Patullo  said  with  that 
surprising  old-fashioned  courtly  air  of  his.  "  I  have 
heard  you  speak  at  the  Eire." 

It  was  supremely  absurd,  for  Drusilla  had  risen 
twice,  once  to  ask  a  question,  once  to  supply  a  quota- 
tion ;  both  times  timidly,  with  shaking  knees,  with 
the  consciousness  of  being  coldly  eyed  by  the  other 
women  and  only  half  heard  by  the  occupants  of  the 
back  benches.  She  did  not  infer,  however,  that 
Patullo's  insincerity  in  politeness  cast  any  doubts  on 
his  good  faith  hi  kindness.  And  how  kind  it  was  of 
him  to  come  ! — a  poor,  harassed  old  man  lonely  and 
obscure. 

"  You  write  yourself  ?  "  Drusilla  said,  venturing 
the  question  suggested  by  these  thoughts.  Why  did 
Patullo  not  use  this  "  influence  "  for  his  own  advance- 
ment ? 

Patullo  understood  :  he  flushed  again  and  his  veiny 
white  hands  made  disturbing  movements. 

"  I  write  only  occasionally  :  I  am  otherwise  occu- 
pied. If  I  had  gone  in  for  literature  altogether  I  have 
no  doubt  I  should  have  made  quite  a  decent  living  at 
it.  But  circumstances  willed  otherwise.  .  .  .  What 
is  wanted  nowadays  is  young  blood." 

Drusilla  thought  of  Aunt  Caroline. 

"  But  I  can't  write — I've  never  written  anything 


116          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

except  essays  and  things,"  she  said.  "  And  sometimes 
I  write  letters  to  newspapers — about  stray  cats  and 
overworked  domestic  servants  and  other  things  I 
happen  to  know  a  little  about.  I  never  show  them 
to  any  one.  You  see,  I've  had  no  education — not 
what  people  call  education.  The  girl  in  our  dairy  was 
kept  at  school  five  years  longer  than  I  was,  and  she's 
having  all  sorts  of  evening  classes  and  singing  lessons." 
She  broke  off,  becoming  reserved  and  defensive. 
"  You  see,  my  mother  lost  most  of  her  property  in 
Ireland  when  we  were  very  young — and  she  didn't  like 
to  send  us  to  free  schools  or  to  mix  with  .  .  .  funny 
sorts  of  children." 

"  I  see.  It's  quite  obvious  to  any  one  who  has 
noticed  you  and  your  sisters,"  Patullo  said  with  a  stiff 
bend  of  his  head.  .  .  .  "If  you  have  any  doubts — on 
any  points  of  grammar,  for  example — please  bring 
your  manuscripts  to  me.  I  shall  be  delighted.  In 
the  meantime,  I  shall  write  you  an  introduction  to  my 
friend,  Mr.  Smales,  of  The  Glasgow  Newsboy — and  you 
might  submit  some  taking  pars  or  a  bright  little 
article  of  about  five  hundred." 

Drusilla  had  again  a  sense  of  having  caught  a  blue 
bird  only  to  find  that  it  was  a  dead  one.  The  Glasgow 
Newsboy  was  a  futile  little  paper  made  up  of  extracts 
and  a  lamentable  unpaid  "  Poetry  "  column. 

"  You'd  rather  I  did  not  speak  to  Mr.  Quentin  or 
Mr.  Moore  ?  "  Patullo  said. 

"  Oh,  please  don't !  "  There  was  a  note  of  keen 
annoyance  in  Drusilla's  tone.  "It  is  so  kind  of  you, 
but  I'd  rather  you  didn't.  I  shouldn't  like  to  use 
them — and  Aunt  Caroline's  writing  would  look  so 
ridiculous  in  The  Teller  of  Tales.  .  .  ." 

She  checked  herself  ashamed ;    relieved  to  know 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS     117 

that  Patullo  had  become  absent-minded.  He  rose 
and  moved  shiftingly  doorwards  ;  stopped  and  peered 
at  a  folio  of  reproductions  of  pictures. 

"  It's  mine,"  Drusilla  said  shyly :  a  feeling  of 
criminality  was  associated  with  the  folio,  which  she 
had  bought  with  a  shilling  given  her  to  buy  her  lunch 
one  day  that  her  mother  had  sent  her  into  town  to 
pay  the  gas-bill  at  the  City  Chambers.  Patullo  knew 
all  the  pictures  and  something  of  the  artists  :  he 
pointed  out  the  beauties  of  colouring  and  composition, 
even  of  nude  shapes.  It  was  so  pleasant  to  talk  with 
him  that,  for  the  time,  Drusilla  condoned  the  dark 
biliousness  of  his  face,  the  dandruff  on  his  coat-collar, 
his  impure  linen,  and  the  odour — was  it  of  laudanum  ? 
— that  came  from  him.  She  remembered  having  read 
a  novel  about  a  woman  who  formed  the  opium  habit 
and  became  dirty  in  her  person.  She  began  to  think 
of  Patullo  pityingly  as  a  man  who  had  had  disappoint- 
ments and  wounds  and  was  trying  to  drug  his  heart 
into  dullness.  His  action  in  coming  had  lifted  him 
out  of  the  class  of  mere  neighbours,  nonentities  who 
appeared  on  the  stairs  and  in  the  passage  and  dis- 
appeared into  the  unknown  of  their  respective  flats ; 
whose  lives  came  into  contact  with  one  another's 
only  at  the  materialistic  points  of  the  loss  of  a  latch- 
key, a  puzzlement  about  a  plumber,  a  quarrel  about 
a  cat. 

"  Well,  we've  had  a  very  pleasant  chat,"  Patullo 
said.  "  Maybe  you'll  let  me  come  in  again — we're 
near  neighbours  and  our  interests  are  the  same."  He 
paused,  fumbling  in  his  pockets  as  Drusilla's  hand 
touched  the  sitting-room  door.  "  I'll  let  you  have 
that  introduction  as  soon  as  I've  leisure  to  write  it, 
Miss  Trathbye.  I'll  make  a  note  of  it  as  I'm  such  an 


118          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

absent-minded  beggar "  He  drew  out  a  pencil. 

"  I  may  well  say  that,"  he  went  on,  laughing  and 
shakily  drawing  out  a  bank-book.  "  Here  I  am  with- 
out a  penny  in  my  pocket,  Miss  Trathbye  !  I  found 
myself  short  of  cash  this  morning  and  took  this  out 
with  me  with  the  intention  of  calling  at  the  bank. 
Well,  it's  been  lying  perdu  in  my  pocket  ever  since  !  " 
The  later  layers  of  Patullo's  life  had  imposed  the  words 
and  jests  of  journals  and  literary  societies  on  his 
academic  vocabulary  :  he  jarred  suddenly  on  Drusilla 
as  Aunt  Caroline  did  with  her  ladies'  column  phrases, 
"  dernier  cri"  "  gorge  de  pigeon"  "  a  modish  thing." 
.  .  .  Drusilla  stood  flushing,  vaguely  uncomfortable 
with  a  sense  of  what  was  coming. 

"  You  couldn't  oblige  me  with  the  loan  of  half-a- 
crown  till  to-morrow  ?  "  Patullo  rushed  out,  quaver- 
ingly  smiling. 

"  Certainly,"  Drusilla  murmured,  the  Trathbye 
instinct  urging  her  to  hide  the  fact  that  she  had  not 
a  half-crown — that  she  did  not  know  how  to  get  one. 
"  Excuse  me,"  she  said,  and  left  the  room.  Opening 
the  door,  she  had  a  sense  of  her  mother,  dishevelled, 
fleeing  into  the  bedroom  :  the  door  creaked  and  closed. 
Drusilla  went  to  the  kitchen,  where,  on  one  of  the 
shelves  for  crockery,  there  was  a  tin  box  containing 
the  housekeeping  money.  She  found  a  florin  and 
brought  it  to  Patullo. 

"  I'll  look  in  to  give  this  back  to  you,"  he  said, 
giving  it  a  little  toss  into  the  air  and  catching  it,  as 
he  left  the  house.  "  And  I'll  let  you  have  that  letter 
for  Smales :  just  try  him  with  some  bright  chatty 
little  things.  ..."  He  tossed  the  coin  again  and  let 
it  fall,  ringing ;  and  he  laughed  deliriously  as  he 
stooped  for  it,  clutching  it  with  a  shaking  hand. 


THE  BUGLES  OF  THE  CHAMPIONS     119 

With  a  sense  of  covering  something  shameful,  Drusilla 
suddenly  dismissed  him  and  shut  the  door.  Yet  she 
was  inquisitive  enough  to  stand  for  a  minute,  listening 
to  his  footsteps  :  he  was  going  downstairs. 

She  looked  round.  The  bedroom  door  was  ajar 
and  in  the  aperture  her  mother  showed  ;  flushed 
with  tossings  of  hair  about  her  face,  her  forehead 
heavily  lined  with  pain.  There  was  a  dreadful  look 
in  her  eyes  :  Drusilla  had  seen  it  before. 

She  tried  to  speak.  If  she  could  manage  to  tell  her 
mother  about  the  two  shillings — about  Patullo's  offer 
— about  anything  that  sounded  sane  and  normal. 
The  terror  awakened  by  that  look,  with  its  associa- 
tions, struck  her  into  speechlessness.  If  her  mother 
was  going  to  speak  again  as  she  had  done  that  time 
about  the  art  shop,  Drusilla  felt  that  she  must  die. 
She  felt  actually  faint  just  now,  a  darkness  coming 
before  her  eyes. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  you  ?  "  Mrs.  Trathbye's 
voice  came,  sounding  far  away  certainly,  but  human, 
with  a  peevish  note  in  it,  with  even  a  touch  of  motherly 
alarm. 

Drusilla  leaped  to  her,  clasping  her.  "  Mother  ! 
...  Oh,  Mother." 

"  What  a  little  savage  you  are  !  "  Mrs.  Trathbye 
said  self-consciously.  She  went  on  hurriedly,  trying 
to  speak  casually,  trying  to  ignore  her  knowledge  of 
her  daughter's  horror  of  the  fierce  thing  that  had 
looked  from  her  eyes  :  "  You  shouldn't  receive  men 
in  that  way  when  there's  nobody  but  yourself.  It's 
not  good  taste  :  it  isn't  nice.  ...  I  heard  something 
of  what  Mr.  Patullo  said,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  went  on 
with  a  miserable  cunning,  "  A  person  can  hear  every 
word  in  this  house — the  noises  go  through  and 


120          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

through  me.  Why  are  you  against  Mr.  Quentin 
helping  your  aunt  ?  " 

Drusilla  began  to  cry  ;  and  presently  the  crying  got 
beyond  her  control.  She  had  felt  able  to  fight,  cruelly 
if  need  were,  in  this  matter  of  Michael  Quentin.  There 
was  something  in  her  relation  with  him  that  gave  her 
courage  to  scorn  trivial  tyrannies.  But  now  her 
strength  had  gone  from  her  :  she  felt  that  she  could 
not  recapture  her  hopeful  mood  of  benevolence. 
Patullo's  coming  had  been  like  a  promise  of  help  by 
a  means  other  than  marriage  :  but  Patullo  and — the 
man  like  Cowie — both  seemed  now  to  be  merely 
making  a  noise  like  a  great  blustering  of  bugles  outside 
of  an  infrangible  barrier.  .  .  .  Drusilla  felt  in  a  vague 
blurred  way  the  uselessness  of  her  attempts  to  solve 
the  Wage-earning  Problem.  Its  solution  would  not 
bring  happiness.  The  Sex  Problem,  a  terrible,  dark 
lurking  thing  had  looked  suddenly  from  her  mother's 
eyes. 

"  Ah,  have  done — I'm  too  ill  to  bear  your  temper," 
Mrs.  Trathbye  said. 

Drusilla  heard  her  mother's  slippered  feet  go  softly 
back  into  the  bedroom.  The  girl  went  to  the  kitchen 
where  the  neglected  kettle  was  steaming  :  she  turned 
off  the  gas  with  a  kind  of  rage  against  it  and  every 
hateful  uncomprehending  thing.  She  sat  on  her  stool 
and  wept  in  an  abandonment  of  sorrow,  listening  to 
her  sobs  and  wails.  She  did  not  care  whether  the 
neighbours  heard  or  not  through  the  thin  walls. 

Then  she  rose  and  looked  in  the  glass  :  it  showed 
her  the  beauties  of  rose  and  white,  of  red-brown 
richly  lashed  eyes  and  sweet  features,  all  confused, 
debased,  stained.  And  she  bathed  her  face,  tenderly 
soothing  the  poor  wronged  loveliness. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS 


MICHAEL,  lying  on  the  hot  sand  of  the  beach  near  The 
Corner  House,  was  opening  a  letter.  Racie  Moore 
sprawled  near  him,  smoking  and  holding  a  volume  of 
Turgeniev.  Racie's  reading  was  always  a  mere 
skidding  and  now  he  had  paused  between  two  exquisite 
pages  to  roll  over  on  his  right  side  and  slant  a  swift 
glance  at  Michael.  A  line  of  sand-hummocks  sparsely 
covered  with  grey-green  bent-grass  rose  between  them 
and  the  quiet  road.  Between  them  and  the  sea  there 
were  long  reaches  of  sand,  iridescent,  almost  fluid, 
left  wet  by  the  tide,  which  had  receded  to  its  uttermost. 
Birds  walked  there,  crying  now  and  then  with  a  sweet 
forlornness.  The  sky  and  the  Irish  Sea  were  mys- 
teries, opaquely  misted,  blue-grey  and  still.  It  was 
an  afternoon  early  in  September.  Racie  observed 
that  Michael  blushed  and  a  silly  expression  went 
stealing  over  his  face. 

"  That's  from  Mrs.  Trathbye,"  Michael  said.  There 
was  a  childlike  admission  of  confusion  in  his  eyes 
which  stared  pleadingly  at  Racie,  in  his  hanging  head 
and  the  fluctuations  of  his  colour.  ..."  Miss 
Trathbye's  mother,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  is  she  ?  "  Racie  exclaimed. 

Michael  laughed  delightedly.  "  You  never  let 
these  obvious  opportunities  pass,"  he  said. 

"  We've  got  to  save  ourselves  up,  you  know,"  Racie 
said,  with  the  touch  of  bitterness  with  which  he 

121 


122          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

always  spoke  of  his  profession.  Michael  was  sensible 
of  it :  it  made  him  ashamed  :  he  wanted  to  do  some- 
thing for  his  friend — to  introduce  him  to  the  editor  of 
The  Teller  of  Tales — to  engage  him  as  a  travelling- 
companion.  He  always  found  his  eagerness  battered 
and  brought  to  limpness  against  the  dead  wall  of 
Racie's  cynicism,  his  haughtiness,  his  indignant  faith  in 
his  own  failure.  How  could  you  introduce  a  writer  who 
wouldn't  write — who  said  he  couldn't  write  .  .  .  ?  " 

"  Beg  pardon,  Mick — what  about  her  ?  "  Racie 
asked. 

"  She  very  kindly  asks  me  to  call,"  Michael  said. 
Racie    sat    up    and    whistled.     The    volume    of 
"  Fathers  and  Children  "  dropped,  sank  a  little  way 
into  the  soft  disordered  sand. 

Michael  coloured  more  hotly  in  anger  at  the 
deliberate  air  of  consternation. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  he  exclaimed. 
"  Trying  to  catch  that  little  fellow's  note,"  Racie 
said,   signifying  a  sand-piper  and  giving  Michael  a 
glance  from  the  corner  of  his  eye. 

"  H'm !  "  Michael  said  smiling.  "  Never  mind.  .  .  . 
Mrs.  Trathbye  writes  about  a  business  matter.  I 
asked  her  if  I  might  call  and  hers  is  in  reply.  Patullo 
spoke  to  me  about  Miss  Trathbye's  aunt,  who  is  a 
writer  and  wants  to  get  introductions.  Patullo 
thought  I  might  do  something  for  her." 

"  On  The  Teller  of  Tales  ?  "  Racie  exclaimed  in  a 
surprise  no  longer  feigned. 

"  Yes,"  Michael  said  resentfully. 

"  Well,  I'm— well,  of  all  the "     Racie  rolled 

over,  laughing ;  then  sat  up,  his  coat  and  hair  spat- 
tered with  sand.  "  Miss  Caroline  Trathbye  is  the 
lady  you  mean  ?  " 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  123 

"  Yes.  Now  you're  going  to  tell  me  you  know  all 
about  her  though  a  few  weeks  ago  you  hadn't  heard 
her  name,"  Michael  jeered.  "  You  never  make 
mistakes  on  The  Mercury." 

"  The  Mercury  is  one  huge  mistake,"  Racie  said. 
"  Listen,  Mick,"  he  went  on,  grave.  "  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  do  know  something  about  Caroline  Trathbye. 
I  admit  I  was  ignorant  of  her  name  till  quite  recently. 
What  of  that  ?  One  knows  things  to-day  that  one 
didn't  know  yesterday." 

"  Oh,  don't  argue !  "  Michael  uttered. 

"  I'm  merely  asserting.     We've  a  man " 

"  On  The  Mercury"  Michael  said,  scornful. 

"  An  outside  contributor.  The  fellow  who  does 
these  occasional  cartoons.  He  knows  about  the 
Trathbyes.  His  father  has  an  art  business — enamel- 
ling, marquetry,  banging  brass,  you  know.  Miss 
Trathbye  used  to  be  with  him  learning  art  em- 
broidery." 

Michael  had  a  vision  of  Drusilla  bending  over  an 
embroidery  frame  ;  light  rimming  the  red  hah*,  a  foot 
peeping  from  under  the  long  folds  of  a  dimly  blue 
gown,  rosy  finger-tips  shining  hi  and  out  of  a  mesh  of 
pied  silks. 

"As  an  apprentice,"  Racie  said,  trying  to  shatter 
the  picture.  "  She  stayed  only  a  year  or  so.  Got 
work  to  do  at  home,  or  something,  or  her  mother 
objected  to  her  being  in  the  shop.  Quite  rightly,  no 
doubt :  she's  rather  a  striking-looking  girl." 

"  Yes  ?  "  Michael  said  with  an  awful  irony. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  think  so.  Anyway,  this  fellow's  father 
has  known  the  Trathbyes  ever  since  they  came  to 
Glasgow.  He  boarded  with  them  for  a  time  :  Mrs. 
Trathbye  had  a  boarding-house  in  Lamb  Street." 


124          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

It  was  another  attempt  to  fade  the  romance  that, 
Racie  suspected,  was  glowing  in  Michael's  illusionable 
heart.  Racie  glanced  up  from  the  corner  of  his  eye, 
looked  down  again,  and  went  on  : 

"  The  Trathbyes  used  to  have  a  lot  of  property  in 
the  South  of  Ireland,  you  know.  There's  a  son  there 
still.  .  .  .  They  were  rather  a  wild  lot  and  they  ran 
through  everything  they  had.  There's  nothing  left, 
it  seems,  but  a  row  of  cottages  and  a  mill  that  won't 
work.  The  son  takes  after  the  mill.  .  .  .  Mrs. 
Trathbye  found  she  wasn't  equal  to  the  boarding- 
house  and  retired." 

"  Poor  lady  !  "  Michael  said.  He  had  a  pitiful 
vision  of  Drusilla's  mother,  a  stately  and  beautiful 
woman  in  black  velvet  and  pearls.  It  did  not  occur 
to  him  that  such  a  costume  was  unsuited  to  a  boarding- 
house  in  Lamb  Street :  nor  did  he  know  the  price  of 
black  velvet. 

"  Umf.  .  .  .  They  must  be  pretty  hard  up,"  Racie 
said.  "  Of  course  I  don't  know — it's  not  my  business. 
Mrs.  Trathbye  may  have  something  of  her  own  and 
Miss  Trathbye  probably  makes  something  by  her 
work  at  home.  And  one  of  her  sisters  is  in  Cloagh's 
office — Cloagh  the  writer,  you  know.  I  saw  her  one 
day  I  was  in  on  Mercury  business — a  half-grown  girl, 
dark  and  very  plump.  I  shouldn't  have  known  she 
was  Miss  Trathbye's  sister." 

Michael  was  making  a  tunnel  in  the  sand  :  he  found 
a  broken  yellow  shell  and  tried  to  balance  it  on  his 
palm.  If  he  had  shown  anger,  outblazed  into  his 
characteristic  invective  against  the  base  estimates  of 
the  world  in  general  and  The  Mercury  in  particular, 
Racie  would  have  felt  that  his  tactics  had  been  in 
some  measure  successful :  but  Michael's  silence  and 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  125 

the  smile  that  pouted  his  lips  seemed  to  imply  an 
impudent  defiance  of  common-sense. 

"  About  Miss  Caroline  Trathbye  .  .  ."  Racie  said. 
"  Who  told  you  she'd  do  for  The  Teller  of  Tales  ? 
Patullo  ?  Take  my  word  for  it,  Mick,  Patullo's  an 
old  fraud  :  he  forgets  his  purse  too  often.  .  .  .  Well, 
never  mind.  Miss  Caroline  writes  for  The  Dublin  Lady 
and  for  The  Children's  Guide  and  The  Glasgow  Northern 
News  and  The  Lady's  Circle.  She  writes  about  frying 
fish  and  washing  sun-bonnets  ;  and  she  can't  do  even 
that  grammatically.  For  mercy's  sake,  what  do  you 
think  she's  going  to  do  on  The  Tetter  of  Tales  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  didn't  mean  she  was  to  write  for  it  itself," 
Michael  said,  foiled,  "  though  I  don't  see  how  you 
can  know  she's  incapable  of  it.  ...  You  always 
believe  nothing's  going  to  turn  out  right.  What's 
the  sense  of  going  on  that  way  ?  Uncle  Claud  knows 
other  magazine  people  :  he  could  get  her  a  good 
position  on  a  London  paper  any  day  he  likes,  or  as 
secretary  to  somebody." 

"  She  has  the  presence  of  an  old  china- woman," 
Racie  murmured.  He  quailed  before  Michael's  look 
of  horror  and  took  refuge  in  a  little  qualifying  laugh. 

"  These  generalisations  are  always  vulgar,"  Michael 
said.  ..."  And  idiotic.  China-women  are  like  any 
other  women.  .  .  .  China-women  .  .  ." 

"  I  didn't  know  you  held  a  brief  for  china- women," 
Racie  said.  "  Cheap,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  Fearfully  cheap,"  Michael  said.  "  What  have  her 
age  and  appearance  to  do  with  it  ?  It's  low,  that  sort 
of  thing — it's  abominable.  .  .  .  The  one  question  is  : 
'  Can  she  write  ?  '  " 

"  But  she  can't !  "  Racie  cried,  goaded  into  anima- 
tion. "  Haven't  I  been  telling  you  she  can't  ?  "  He 


126          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

shut  his  eyes  and  monotoned  :  "  '  This  dress  would  be 
charming  in  powder  blue  voile,  but,  between  you  and 
I,  I  incline  to  its  expression  in  one  of  the  modish 
ratines.'  .  .  .  '  Bring  to  the  boil  and  while  boiling 
add  the  duck's  foot,  and  other  ingredients.'  .  .  . 
That's  the  sort  of  thing  she's  been  doing  for  half  a 
century." 

Michael  was  laughing.  Racie's  irresponsible  wit 
always  amused  him. 

"  Well,  I  don't  care,"  he  said.  "  Uncle  Claud  knows 
all  sorts  of  Press  people  :  he  can  find  her  something 
to  do  in  her  own  line.  Not  that  I  believe  that  it's 
such  a  poor  line  as  you  say.  I  don't  believe  an 
educated  lady  would  write  that  sort  of  stuff." 

"  Educated  lady  ?  "  Racie  exclaimed.  "  Educated 
people  have  to  write  what  they're  paid  for,"  he 
muttered,  retreating  before  the  anger  in  Michael's  face. 

"  I'll  go  up  to  Glasgow  with  you  to-morrow  if  you'll 
have  me,"  Michael  said  repressively.  "  I  told  Mrs. 
Trathbye  I  would  call  any  day  that  Miss  Caroline 
would  like  an  interview.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Trathbye  very 
kindly  asks  me  to  go  to-morrow  and  have  tea  with 
them." 

"  Oh,  Lord,"  Racie  ejaculated.  "  She  has  you  on 
toast." 

Michael  rose  with  an  affectation  of  calmness  and 
languor  :  he  stood,  brushing  his  clothes  with  a  hand 
that  trembled  a  little,  and  gazing  out  at  the  misty  sea 
hardly  defined  from  the  misty  sky.  Farther  along 
the  shore  there  was  a  point  of  rocks,  sculped  sandstone 
of  soft  hues  of  red  and  rose-colour  ;  and  in  one  of  the 
curves  of  this  point  two  boats  lay  a-dream  in  a  little 
bay  of  dim  grey-blueness. 

**  I'irgo  for  a  row,"  Michael  said  and  left  his  friend. 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  127 

Racie,  smoking,  watched  the  boat  cleaving  the  soft 
shimmering  of  the  sea.  The  cluck  of  the  oars  in  the 
rowlocks  came  in  a  swift  rhythm,  then  suddenly 
stopped.  Michael,  as  his  habit  was,  had  shipped  the 
oars  and  was  lying  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  One  of 
his  white-shod  feet  showed  shadowily  above  the  edge 
of  the  boat,  rising  and  sinking  with  the  slow  pulse  of 
the  great  drowsy  sea.  .  .  .  Racie  irritably  shifted  his 
position,  screwing  up  his  eyebrows,  uttering  a  "  'Mf!  " 
eloquent  of  a  forced  tolerance  of  an  absurd  standard. 

He  said  to  himself  that,  as  a  rule,  he  did  not  attempt 
to  dissuade  Michael  Quentin  from  any  folly  contem- 
plated. But  this — was  a  bit  different.  .  .  .  Yes  :  it 
was  a  bit  different.  Michael,  as  an  active  agent  of 
his  own  crazes,  possibly  got  little  harm  :  indeed,  he 
worked  off  blinding  bedazzling  vapours  ;  and  emerged 
from  each  of  his  failures  with  at  least  a  faint  possibility 
that  he  would  never  make  a  fool  of  himself  in  that  special 
way  again.  But  in  this  affair,  Michael  was  passive — 
in  the  hands  of  the  Trathbyes.  The  thing  seemed  very 
clear  to  Racie.  Only  a  human  being  with  an  income 
like  Michael's  could  remain  blind  to  the  fact  that 
people  would  stick  at  nothing  to  get  money.  Racie 
had  inhaled  the  idea  that  a  woman  always  schemes  to 
get  her  daughters  married  :  he  would  not  have  said 
this  in  words,  he  had  not  formally  thought  it,  and 
he  had  never  before  seen,  nor  looked  for,  an  example 
of  it  in  life  :  yet  it  was  there,  a  vaguely  termed,  un- 
questioned dogma.  Its  corollary  was  that  a  son-in- 
law  with  money  was  hailed  by  the  match-making 
mother — especially  by  the  poor  match-making  mother 
— especially  by  the  widowed  poor  match-making 
mother.  .  .  . 

Cunning  creatures  these  widows  !   Racie's  news  of 


128          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

the  Trathbyes  had  confirmed  him  in  his  view  of  them. 
He  had  a  little  disgust  against  cant  about  Irish  open- 
ness of  heart,  Irish  simplicity  and  improvidence.  He 
had  heard  much  of  that  sort  of  talk  in  the  Eire  Club 
and  at  the  Mission  Rooms,  and  knew  how  it  was  used 
to  flatter,  to  move,  to  bedazzle  and  exploit.  That 
did  not  matter  much :  Michael  was  already  chilled 
by  the  meetings  of  the  Eire  Club  and  (Racie  had 
hoped)  would  let  the  thing  shiver  to  pieces  soon.  The 
sooner  the  better  i  (he  had  said) — with  that  idiotic 
young  Cowie  constantly  on  his  feet,  and  with  old 
Patullo  curiously  off-hand  and  evasive  about  the 
amount  of  the  subscriptions.  .  .  .  But  now  Racie 
foreboded  a  folly  that  might  be  more  enduring  and 
more  destructive  than  the  loss  of  a  few  pounds  and 
the  waste  of  a  few  evenings  in  petty  annoyances. 

The  thing  was  very  clear  to  him.  Mrs.  Trathbye 
(being  a  poor  widow  and  a  mother)  was  inevitably  a 
match-maker ;  and  she  was  more  of  a  match-maker 
than  the  average  widowed  mother  of  small  income. 
She  had  come — some  years  ago,  it  is  true,  but  still  she 
had  come — from  the  south  or  west  of  Ireland  ;  and 
she  belonged,  by  birth  and  by  marriage,  to  good 
hunting,  hard-riding,  and  more  or  less  hard-drinking 
families.  Racie  had  heard  people  speak  of  Mrs. 
Trathbye  as  "  a  perfect  lady."  He  knew  what  that 
meant.  .  .  .  She  had  certain  graces  of  manner, 
possibly  of  appearance,  the  concomitants  of  con- 
servatism, of  a  Victorian  prudishness  and  helplessness. 
Irishmen  of  the  "  good  family  "  country  type  were 
always  at  least  a  century  behind  the  rest  of  Britain ; 
and  they  kept  their  womenkind  in  an  obscurantism 
more  deep  than  their  own.  The  word  "  womenkind  " 
in  its  mixture  of  a  sort  of  tender  skittishness  with 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  129 

mere  animalism  was  in  itself  eloquent  of  the  attitude 
of  these  people.  "  Womenkind "  at  home  were 
contented  to  wheedle  for  money  for  dresses  and  jewels, 
to  light  the  cigars  of  their  husbands  and  fathers  and 
brothers.  "  Womenkind  "  thrust  into  the  world  were 
frightened,  ignorant,  desperate  creatures :  their 
struggle  for  matrimony  was  fierce  because  marriage 
was  the  one  career  open  to  them,  their  single  means  of 
livelihood,  their  sole  importance,  then*  only  triumph. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  (and  possibly  the  daughters)  were 
womenkind.  Racie  surmised  it.  They  knew  that 
Michael  Quentin  was  rich.  It  would  require  one 
meeting,  or  at  most  two,  to  show  them  that  he  was 
a  fool.  There  was  no  guile  in  him  :  he  would  walk, 
with  those  staring,  unseeing  eyes  of  his,  into  the  trap. 
After  he  was  caught,  he  would  deny  that  there  had 
been  any  trap  laid.  When  it  was  too  late,  the  people 
might  let  the  mask  drop  and  their  ugly  duplicity  glare 
out.  Then  Michael  would  cry  out,  in  his  perennial 
rage  and  astonishment.  .  .  .  But  this  time  escape 
would  not  be  possible. 

The  worst  of  it  was  (Racie  must  admit  to  himself) 
that  the  people's  state  was  not  altogether  one  of  crude, 
flagrant  beggary.  They  had  something  to  offer  that 
might  tempt  a  man  far  less  of  a  fool  than  Michael  was, 
with  senses  far  less  easily  quickened,  with  a  love  of 
beauty  much  less  devout.  Yes,  they  had  something — 
hang  them !  The  girl  was  beautiful.  Racie  had 
struggled  against  the  admission  :  it  came  now  in  the 
presence  of  the  undeniable  unclaiming  beauty  of 
Nature.  She  was  akin  to  that :  she  bore  the  test  of  it 
as  a  splendid  line  of  poetry  rings  and  vaunts  in  the 
brain  unshattered  by  the  voices  of  streams  and  trees. 
Her  beauty  rang  true :  there  was  in  it  something 

i 


130          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

primaeval,  a  wonder  of  freshness,  a  glory  of  power,  as 
there  was  in  the  dawn  or  in  the  opening  of  a  rose.  .  .  . 
It  was  merely  bodily.  What  signs  had  she  given 
of  a  rare  spirit,  a  warm  heart,  an  alert  brain  ?  But 
Michael,  having  his  senses  appealed  to,  had  let  his 
imagination  run  riot  in  a  very  wilderness  of  illusions. 
Hang  her  !  Hang  them  all !  There  was  no  doubt  that 
the  people  knew  how  beautiful  she  was  and  were 
basing  their  hopes  on  her.  Racie  knew — for  was  not 
the  air  full  of  tales  of  match-making  mothers  fostering 
their  girls'  good  looks,  tending  their  tresses  and  com- 
plexions, insisting  on  regulations  in  rest  and  diet  ? 
Once  at  the  Eire  Club  he  had  heard  Miss  Morland  quiz 
Miss  Trathbye  on  having  to  go  early  to  bed  "  like  a 
good  little  girl."  There  came  a  disquieting  picture  of 
Drusilla's  face  flushing  at  the  impertinence — of  the 
deepening  and  extending  of  the  rose-colour  in  her 
cheeks,  of  the  distressed  soft  eyes,  the  parted  lips,  so 
mournful  and  innocent.  Confound  her  !  Now  Racie 
felt  an  exasperation  that  might  have  astonished  him 
had  he  realised  its  energy.  Michael  Quentin  was  badly 
armoured  for  resisting  the  attacks  of  a  wily,  prudish, 
mercenary  widow  :  but  this  weapon  of  beauty,  placed 
in  her  hands,  was  in  itself  so  dangerous  to  him  that  its 
use  hardly  needed  the  technique  acquired  by  poverty, 
obscurantism,  and  widowhood.  .  .  .  Racie — still  with 
that  dogmatic  vagueness  of  popular  opinion — per- 
ceived that  the  other  members  of  the  family,  physically 
and  socially,  deliberately  sacrificed  themselves  to  the 
preservation  and  advertisement  of  this  girl's  attrac- 
tions. It  was,  no  doubt,  a  matter  tacitly  understood 
rather  than  spoken  of;  but  as  much  of  a  business 
venture  as  the  action  of  a  poor  family  who  sent  their 
clever  boy  to  a  university,  hoping  for  general  benefits 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  131 

from  his  future  prosperity.  .  .  .  The  girl,  though  the 
eldest,  did  not  go  out  to  work  as  her  sisters  did. 
There  was,  of  course,  the  probability  that  her  good 
looks  made  it  difficult — for  her  mother's  Victorian 
ideas  would  find  offences  in  the  merest  familiarities, 
good-natured  and  admiring.  The  girl  could  hardly — 
Racie  reluctantly  acknowledged  it — could  hardly 
walk  about  town  alone  without  exciting  stares  from 
young,  old,  and  middle-aged  fools.  Still,  the  family 
was  poor  :  other  poor  girls,  with  fair  faces  and  fine 
figures,  had  to  go  to  business — why  not  this  one  ? 
It  was  unlikely  that  she  was  kept  at  home  to  assist 
in  the  house.  What  else  had  the  widow  to  do  ? 
What  was  the  aunt  there  for  with  her  scanty  monthly 
columns  ?  Racie  did  not  believe  that  the  girl  worked 
in  the  house  :  her  hands  were  white :  he  imagined 
her  breakfasting  in  bed,  being  waited  upon  and  petted 
like  the  spoiled  beauty  in  a  novel.  Beauties  were 
always  spoiled  :  the  world  was  soft  and  silly  to  them  : 
the  sun  fell  around  them  tenderly,  and  the  wind  blew 
upon  them  only  to  set  free  lovely  little  twists  and  curls 
of  their  hair. 

Racie,  looking  out  to  the  dim  drowsing  sea  where 
the  phantom-like  white  foot  rose  and  fell  with  the 
boat,  puffed  a  loud  breath  that  was  akin  to  a  sigh. 
It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  he  took  a  vow 
to  protect  Michael  with  his  money  and  his  stupidity, 
against  the  Trathbyes'  impecunious  scheming  :  but 
it  is  certain  that  Racie's  feelings  came  near  to  crystal- 
lising into  such  a  resolve.  He  said  to  himself,  rather 
excitedly,  that  he  must  affect  to  be  completely  in- 
different. He  was  not  going  to  contradict  Michael 
into  stubbornness  by  speaking  against  the  Trathbyes  : 
the  best  plan  was  to  reduce  them  to  insignificance. 


132          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

He  had  really  nothing  to  say  against  the  people  : 
they  were,  no  doubt,  justified  from  their  own  point 
of  view.  To  offer  the  girl's  beauty  was  a  perfectly 
fair  thing  to  do 

Not  to  Michael  Quentin.  None  of  the  treatments 
that  were  applicable  to  other  men  were  effective  in 
his  case.  It  was  not  fair  even  to  leave  him  alone  to 
make  a  fool  of  himself.  He  was  too  divinely  foolish. 

Michael,  on  his  back  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  was 
gazing  up  at  the  sleepy  sky.  Behind  the  blue-grey 
veil  something  struggled  and  strove,  something  bright 
and  eternal  waited.  It  was  glorious  to  lie  there  and 
see  the  faint  suffusion  of  light  in  the  mist.  Michael 
had  often  thought,  watching  for  dawn,  that  he  would 
not  lose  a  moment  of  the  time  of  expectancy  when 
Night  was  still  reluctant  to  yield  to  Day  :  he  knew  so 
well  the  wonder  that  was  coming  :  it  was  enchantment 
to  wait,  lulled  into  inertia  by  the  very  hope  and 
rapture. 

What  need  was  there  for  men  to  rush  onward  in  the 
search  for  God  ?  God  came.  Why  cut  short  the 
time  of  hoping  and  praying  and  dreaming,  the  waiting 
for  His  footstep  and  the  rustle  of  His  garment  ? 

What  need  was  there  to  wrong  Love  by  haste  ? 
Love  was  a  jealous  God.  Let  him  have  his  full  meed 
of  expectation,  of  trust,  of  prayers  and  fears  and  hopes. 
Let  him  have  sufferings,  too,  to  lay  at  her  feet,  tears, 
dumb  dreads  and  despairs,  reverences  in  which  a  man 
did  not  ask  to  lift  the  veil  but  was  content  to  kneel, 
loving  the  brightness  that  suffused  it.  ...  Oh,  the 
baseness,  the  stupidity  of  not  rejoicing  in  Love's 
probation,  in  not  glorying  in  Love's  blind  faith  in 
that  other  soul  hidden  behind  its  veil !  .  .  .  Love 
would  come — Love  would  come. 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS      188 

II 

Brasilia's  feeling,  when  she  heard  that  Michael 
Quentin  was  coming  to  tea,  was  an  overpowering  one 
of  dismay.  She  had  no  energy  to  spare  for  mere 
anger  or  annoyance :  she  felt  helpless,  as  in  the 
presence  of  a  catastrophe. 

She  had  known,  of  course,  that  her  mother  had 
overheard  all  of  Patullo's  offer.  Even  had  this  not 
been  so,  Brasilia  had  an  honesty  which  had  nothing 
to  do  with  principle,  which  was  easily  conquered  by 
her  timidity,  but  took  little  account  of  possible 
dangers.  She  would  have  told  her  mother  about 
Patullo's  offer,  foreseeing  that  it  might  lead  to  humilia- 
ting dealings  with  Michael  Quentin  :  but  in  her  sur- 
mises, the  worst  that  could  have  come  of  it  would 
have  been  the  submission  of  one  of  Aunt  Caroline's 
columns  and  an  absurd  letter  to  the  editor  of  The 
Teller  of  Tales ;  then  disappointment.  The  Trathbyes 
never  expected  anything  else. 

But  on  Aunt  Caroline's  return  from  the  garden- 
party,  Mrs.  Trathbye  had  risen  from  her  sick-bed  and 
come  into  the  kitchen.  Clothed  in  a  dressing-gown  of 
a  greyish  blue  colour,  and  with  a  crimson  Shetland 
wool  shawl  swathed  about  her  head  and  face,  she 
moved  with  a  characteristic  grace  and  stateliness  ; 
taking  the  tray  of  cups  and  saucers  from  Brasilia's 
hands  and  herself  laying  the  table  ;  replacing  the 
brown  loaf  by  a  white  one  ;  taking  away  the  spoons 
and  scornfully  polishing  them ;  practising  a  score  of 
other  base  little  irritations,  vulgar  little  self-asser- 
tions. Mrs.  Trathbye's  cheeks  were  hot  and  her  eyes 
glistened :  she  was  ostentatiously  friendly  to 
Aunt  Caroline ;  and  she  talked  eagerly  of  Patullo's 


134          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

suggestions — striving,  it  seemed  to  Drusilla,  to  lose 
sight  of  the  scene  in  the  hall.  Drusilla,  with  the  rings 
left  by  the  weeping  round  her  eyes,  was  piteous,  too 
miserable  to  interfere  in  the  plans  of  the  two  women. 
Essie,  coming  in  laughing,  with  a  mischievous  mouth, 
seemed  delightfully  natural  and  wholesome,  and  did 
much  to  lay  the  horror  that  had  looked  from  their 
mother's  eyes. 

A  day  later  Drusilla  had  noticed,  on  the  hall  table, 
a  letter  addressed  in  her  aunt's  handwriting  to  Michael 
Quentin.  Aunt  Caroline's  writing,  pale  and  spidery, 
was  in  itself  an  offence.  A  fury  urged  Drusilla  to  tear 
the  letter,  to  burn  it,  to  lie  about  it :  any  means  of 
saving  her  place  in  Michael's  opinion  seemed  justifi- 
able. But  the  letter  continued  to  lie  hi  a  pale 
inviolability  and  later  was  carried  to  the  post. 
Michael's  reply  was  discussed  by  Mrs.  Trathbye  and 
Aunt  Caroline,  by  Essie  and  Kathleen.  They  would 
have  told  Drusilla  everything  if  she  had  asked,  but 
she  would  ask  nothing.  She  saw  that  another  letter 
was  despatched,  and  wondered,  in  a  dreadful  sore 
shame,  what  they  were  doing.  It  was  mean  of  them 
to  be  making  use  of  her  friends  at  whom  they  had 
sneered  in  hostility  :  it  was  insolent :  it  was  cruel. 
They  ought  to  have  known  more  about  her  feelings 
towards  Michael  than  to  be  bruising  her  heart  in  this 
way.  Her  mother  ought  to  have  understood. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  laughed  with  pleasure  when  she 
received  Michael's  acceptance  of  her  invitation.  She 
was  hospitable  and  her  chances  of  playing  the  hostess 
were  rare. 

"  Girls,  he's  coming  to  tea  on  Friday." 

"  Well,  I  hope  you'll  be  able  to  get  something  for 
tea,"  Essie  said,  quizzing  her  mother.  "  /  can't  give 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  185 

you  any  more  money."  She  earned  the  largest  salary 
and  was  beginning  to  be  critical  of  the  management 
of  the  house.  She  had  been  for  the  last  three  months 
in  a  big  office,  where  there  were  many  other  girls, 
and  the  influence  of  their  merriment  and  their  talk 
about  clothes  was  beginning  to  show  in  Essie.  Her 
work  was  of  increased  importance,  satisfying  in  some 
measure  her  self-esteem.  She  was  blither,  gentler, 
less  morbidly  domineering.  Now  and  then  a  certain 
sympathy  with  Drusilla  peeped  forth,  a  disposition, 
faint  and  erratic,  to  side  with  her  sister  against  the 
insane  contradictions  and  censures  of  Aunt  Caroline 
and  Mrs.  Trathbye.  .  .  .  Essie's  hair,  of  a  lighter 
brown  than  Kathleen's,  was  done  carefully  rather  than 
becomingly,  and  she  was  beginning  to  dress  well. 
Kathleen,  in  a  sleepy  office  with  one  old  man  in  it, 
wore  a  clumsy  blouse  and  skirt  and  collars  with  holes 
in  them. 

"  Ah,  I'm  not  asking  you  for  money ! "  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said,  reproachful.  "  I'm  not  going  to 
make  any  pretence  of  having  anything  more  than 
usual." 

"  Of  course  not,"  Essie  said,  sarcastic.  She  glanced 
over  the  table  on  which  there  were  two  platefuls  of 
food,  one  of  bread,  the  other  of  farthing  biscuits. 
The  Trathbyes,  very  clean  in  their  habits,  were 
obliged  to  economise  in  the  matter  of  table-linen. 
The  cloth  was  of  a  greyish  tinge  with  tea-stains  here 
and  there. 

"  I'll  be  responsible  for  the  tea,"  Aunt  Caroline  said, 
very  dignified.  "  It's  me  he's  coming  to  see." 

Mrs.  Trathbye  bubbled  with  laughter. 

"Is  he  good-looking  ?  "  she  asked  Drusilla.  "  He 
might  take  a  fancy  to  your  aunt." 


136          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  Dillie's  got  idiotic  ideas  about  people's  looks," 
Kathleen  growled. 

"  You  needn't  be  so  beastly,"  Essie  said.  Life  in 
her  big  office  was  teaching  her  the  charms  of  badinage  : 
she  was  becoming  conscious  that  at  home  the  man 
question  was  treated  too  gravely  and  bitterly.  Her 
mother  even,  with  her  freakish  moods  of  jesting, 
would  joke  only  about  cases  which  were  impossible. 

"  Why  shouldn't  he  take  a  fancy  to  one  of  us  ?  " 
Essie  said.  "  To  Dillie  or  me  ?  " 

Mrs.  Trathbye  glanced  quickly  from  Kathleen  to 
Brasilia  :  the  laughter  faded  from  her  face.  "  Well 
.  .  .  there's  your  chance,  Kathleen,"  she  said.  Her 
voice  was  artificial,  and  Kathleen  rose  in  resentment. 
The  girl,  plain  and  clumsy  in  her  juvenile  dress,  felt 
in  a  half-comprehending  way  that  it  was  to  her  lack 
of  charms  that  she  owed  her  mother's  favouritism. 

At  night  Drusilla  lay  beside  Essie  and  thought.  It 
was  Tuesday  and  Michael  was  to  come  on  Friday. 
She  must  find  some  means  of  preventing  it :  she 
regretted  that  she  had  not  destroyed  Aunt  Caroline's 
first  letter  :  she  thought  feverishly  of  writing  a  note 
to  Michael  cancelling  the  invitation  ;  of  sending  him 
a  telegram  with  news  of  an  illness  in  the  house.  No  : 
that  would  be  found  out.  .  .  .  She  must  do  something. 
She  imagined  the  scene  of  the  tea-party ;  the  table 
laden  with  the  good  china,  and  the  silver,  the  "  tea- 
bread  "  and  cake,  the  bread  and  butter,  which  on 
important  occasions  Kathleen  was  always  asked  to 
cut,  which  she  cut  so  thickly  and  raggedly ;  the 
hot  fire,  Mrs.  Trathbye's  ideal  of  evening  comfort  in 
summer  as  in  winter ;  the  shining  of  Essie's  face, 
the  deepening  crimson  of  Kathleen's.  She  imagined 
Aunt  Caroline,  fussing,  interrupting,  contradicting, 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  137 

pressing  Michael  to  eat ;  the  clearing  of  the  table 
with  everybody  in  the  relief  of  motion  getting  into 
everybody's  else's  way  ;  Mrs.  Trathbye  going  to  the 
piano  and  singing  duets  with  Kathleen,  thrusting 
sulky  cynical  Kathleen  on  the  visitor's  notice.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  bearable.  The  singular  thing  was  that 
up  till  now  Drusilla  had  believed  that  her  family, 
deliberately  social,  must  make  a  rather  pleasant 
impression.  She  had  even  pictured  an  evening  with 
Alick  Cowie  as  a  guest,  charmed  by  her  mother.  The 
good  china  was  pretty  and  old,  and  she  had  not  before 
felt  that  there  was  anything  shameful  in  her  mother's 
pride  in  it.  The  silver,  glittering  beyond  a  bunch  of 
flowers,  the  stiff,  shining  folds  of  the  "  good  "  table- 
cloth, the  unusual  abundance  of  food,  were  pleasant 
to  her  senses.  If  you  got  a  seat  at  the  far  side  of  the 
table  the  fire  was  not  intolerable.  Mrs.  Trathbye 
sang  prettily  :  it  did  not  matter  very  much  about 
Kathleen,  nor  about  Essie's  piece,  "  Betsy  and  I  are 
out,"  which  she  recited.  People  were  accustomed  to 
girls  doing  things  badly.  ...  It  did  not  matter  very 
much  about  Aunt  Caroline  so  long  as  she  was  in  a 
fairly  good  temper  and  kept  out  of  the  room  most  of 
the  time.  She  had  a  habit  of  staying  in  the  kitchen 
so  that  visitors  might  think  that  she  was  the  main- 
spring of  the  household.  Poor  Aunt  Caroline  !  With 
Cowie  there  as  a  guest,  Drusilla  would  have  smiled 
at  her  oddities. 

But  what  was  good  enough  for  Cowie,  what  would 
have  been  taken  for  granted  by  him,  no,  what  would 
have  pleased  and  impressed  him,  seemed  ridiculously 
vile  and  incongruous  in  relation  to  Michael  Quentin. 
Drusilla  thought  of  Michael's  cultured  voice,  of  his 
hands,  his  serious  eyes,  of  the  books  that  he  read,  the 


138          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

things  of  which  he  spoke.  Oh,  it  was  cruel  to  disgrace 
her  before  Michael  Quentin  !  In  her  helplessness  she 
began  to  sob,  and  Essie,  turning  impatiently  by  her 
side,  asked : 

"  What's  wrong  ?   Are  you  dreaming  ?  " 

"  Yes — it  was  something  like  a  bad  dream  anyway," 
Drusilla  replied  with  a  feverish  laugh. 

"  Well,  I  wish  to  goodness  you'd  be  quiet  and 
let  me  sleep.  Every  one  can't  lie  in  bed  in  the 
morning.  ..." 

"  There  it  is  again,"  Drusilla  thought  with  a  kind 
of  amusement.  For  it  was  strange  how  unreal  her 
thoughts  on  the  Wage-earning  Problem  seemed  to  her 
now.  She  would  not  have  tolerated  platitudes  about 
a  sound  financial  basis  or  her  duty  to  her  family. 
Her  interests  clashed  fiercely  with  theirs  in  this 
matter.  Let  them  go  down  with  their  fustian  notions  ! 
She  knew  that  Michael  and  she  were  right,  dwellers 
on  the  plane  of  realities,  where  beauty  and  refine- 
ment and  the  truths  of  Life  and  Death  that  men 
call  Poetry  were  appraised  at  their  true  value.  She 
said  to  herself  savagely  that  she  had  a  right  to  be 
ashamed,  even  of  her  mother.  .  .  .  She  found  herself 
praying,  childishly  asking  God  to  keep  Michael  from 
coming. 

It  seemed  like  a  partial  answer  to  her  prayer  when 
Aunt  Caroline,  the  most  sore  of  her  disgraces,  had  a 
bad  cold  on  Thursday.  On  Friday  she  was  so  much 
worse  that  she  must  be  put  to  bed  in  Mrs.  Trathbye's 
room.  Mrs.  Trathbye,  not  sorry,  seized  on  the 
laundried  cloth,  on  the  bags  of  food  that  poor  Caroline 
had  bought,  on  the  silver  that  she  had  polished. 
There  was  elaborate  cleaning  of  the  house,  the  setting 
of  a  fire  in  the  sitting-room,  the  donning  of  dresses. 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  139 

The  gas-lamp  in  the  hall  was  lighted  and  the  flame 
kept  low  till  Michael  rang. 

Mrs.  Trathbye,  with  a  slish  !  of  skirts,  rushed  to  the 
door.  Drusilla  had  risen  and  sat  down  in  annoyance  : 
she  heard  her  mother's  social  tones  of  voice,  gracious, 
gentle,  with  a  kind  of  old-world  courtesy.  The 
sounds  fell  soothingly,  and  she  smiled  as  she  remem- 
bered her  own  childish  saying  that  her  mother  speak- 
ing to  a  visitor  always  made  her  think  of  country- 
houses  with  peacocks  and  terraces.  She  looked  into 
the  mirror  in  the  overmantel  and  saw  her  broad 
shoulders  in  her  best  white  muslin  blouse,  the  pink 
bow  at  her  throat,  the  loveliness  of  her  face  and  head. 
She  fluttered  a  glance  over  the  pretty  tea-table,  the 
lamp-lit  and  shadowed  artful  cosiness  of  the  room, 
the  figures  of  Essie  and  Kathleen,  white-bloused  and 
with  twinkling  beaded  slippers. 

Michael  came  in  and  she  offered  him  her  hand 
timidly.  Mrs.  Trathbye  talked,  for  she  had  never 
encouraged  the  girls  to  be  more  than  monosyllabic 
to  visitors.  Aunt  Caroline's  cold  was  discussed ; 
then  her  journalism.  Mrs.  Trathbye  thanked  Michael, 
very  warmly,  for  his  kindness  ;  and  Michael,  colouring 
charmingly,  said  : 

"  Oh,  please  ..." 

Patullo's  idea  that  Drusilla  should  obtain  journal- 
istic work  had  up  till  now  been  ignored.  It  was 
therefore  with  a  blush  of  surprise  that  she  heard  her 
mother  say,  laughingly  : 

"  Mr.  Patullo  was  suggesting  that  Dillie  should  try 
something  of  the  kind  :  but  I'm  afraid  it  needs  more 
perseverance  than  she  has.  She  hasn't  the  patience 
to  stick  long  to  any  one  thing." 

Michael's  eyes  met  Drusilla's  and  he  smiled ;   and 


140          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

suddenly,  with  happy  eyes,  she  was  responding  to  the 
smile,  resting  in  it  as  in  the  tenderness  of  sunshine. 
Her  rage  at  her  mother's  artificial  good-nature,  at  the 
false  impression  deliberately  given,  fell  down  into 
nothingness  as  rapidly  as  it  had  flickered  up  :  she 
did  not  want  to  explain  to  Michael  for  she  felt 
that  they  were  understanding  each  other  about  deep 
things — real  things,  the  only  things  that  had 
power. 

At  tea,  Mrs.  Trathbye  asked  Michael  about  his  Irish 
blood,  and,  sighing,  told  him  about  Croaghnaihill  and 
about  poor  John — telling  him  much  that  was  new  to 
him  and,  indeed,  to  the  girls  themselves.  Michael, 
listening,  gazing  into  Mrs.  Trathbye's  face,  was  trying 
to  reconstruct  it  in  its  bloom  of  firm  flesh  and  un- 
withered  skin.  Certainly  she  resembled  Drusilla,  he 
had  thought  at  first  sight :  but  the  likeness  wavered, 
vanished,  reappeared  till,  at  the  end  of  the  evening, 
he  called  himself  an  idiot  for  having  imagined  that  it 
existed.  Yet  in  his  mental  pictures  of  Mrs.  Trathbye 
in  Ireland  he  painted  her  rather  like  Drusilla — a  fair- 
haired  Drusilla,  less  tall,  less  radiant.  .  .  .  The  other 
girls  were  altogether  unlike  her  :  they  must  inherit 
from  their  father. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  refused  Drusilla's  help  to  clear  away 
the  tea-things.  "  Kathleen's  my  right  hand,"  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said  to  Michael ;  and  Kathleen,  in  her 
thick  short  skirt  with  her  hanging  plait  and  her 
curious  air  of  elderliness,  went  stolidly  in  and  out 
with  the  tray.  Drusilla,  ashamed  of  her  imputed 
uselessness,  shot  a  glance  at  Michael ;  and  again  she 
found  him  looking  at  her  with  visionary  eyes  and  she 
rested  in  the  look  with  a  feeling  that  she  was  under- 
stood and  comforted,  that  the  reproach  was  taken 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  141 

away  from  her,  that  she  was  being  lifted  up  into  a 
place  of  freedom  and  truthful  seeing.  Nothing  else 
mattered.  Her  shames  and  terrors  of  the  last  few 
days  and  nights  had  shrivelled  like  vapours  in  the 
sunlight. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  played  and  sang.  She  explained  to 
Michael,  with  motherly  indulgent  laughter,  that 
Drusilla  had  no  ear  and  that  a  number  of  music- 
lessons  had  been  wasted  upon  her.  It  was  not  worth 
while  saying  "  When  ?  "  in  anger  at  this  lie,  which 
her  mother  half  believed.  Drusilla  sat  contentedly 
while  her  mother  and  Kathleen  sang  and  Essie  said  her 
"  piece."  Michael  asked  her  no  questions  about  her 
accomplishments  :  he  hardly  spoke  to  her  :  when  he 
stood  up  to  go  the  words  that  had  passed  between 
them  were  no  more  than  could  have  been  remem- 
bered by  a  casual  listener.  .  .  .  Yet  Drusilla  felt  very 
happy. 

"  Turn  down  that  gas  !  "  Mrs.  Trathbye  said,  as  the 
hall-door  closed  :  the  girls  paid  no  attention,  for  they 
had  run  to  the  window  to  see  Michael  emerge  from  the 
close.  Essie,  smiling,  denned  in  the  lighted  window, 
waved  to  him  as  he  looked  up.  Kathleen,  sunned 
out  of  her  sulkiness  by  her  mother's  advertise- 
ments, by  the  singing  of  her  song,  and  especially 
by  an  evening  spent  in  the  company  of  a  young 
man,  waved  too,  hot-faced  and  giggling.  Drusilla 
felt  that  they  were  guilty  of  a  profanity  :  she  sud- 
denly went  from  the  window  and  put  out  the  lamp- 
light. 

"  Ah,  don't  be  doing  a  thing  like  that  and  me 
just  going  to  the  cupboard,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said 
plaintively  at  the  door.  "  Jealous  just  because  your 
sisters  are  getting  more  attention  than  you  are — it 


142          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

isn't  nice.  .  .  .  Come  away  and  help  me  with  the  tea- 
things." 

Drusilla  went ;  glad  that  her  mother  had  asked 
her,  happy,  too  blissfully,  unreasonably  confident  to 
resent  the  effrontery  of  the  obviously  conscious  mis- 
representation. 

"  It's  all  very  well  to  be  having  all  these  things 
to-night,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  blithely  in  the  kitchen, 
as  Essie  began  to  eat  a  bun.  "  We'll  suffer  for  it  at 
the  end  of  the  week."  She  folded  the  left-over  food 
in  a  napkin.  ..."  Isn't  it  an  extraordinary  thing 
that  Mr.  Patullo  hasn't  given  me  back  my  two 
shillings  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  he  means  to  keep  it,"  Drusilla  said,  laugh- 
ing. It  did  not  occur  to  Mrs.  Trathbye  that  the  thing 
was  possible.  Mr.  Patullo  was  a  person  to  be  taken 
seriously ;  a  man,  an  old  gentleman  with  a  courtly 
bow  and  an  immense  circle  of  friends.  His  rather 
evident  poverty  did  not  influence  Mrs.  Trathbye  and 
Aunt  Caroline,  in  whose  minds  respectability  and 
shabbiness  were  not  dissociated.  The  girls — especi- 
ally Essie,  who  was  successful  in  business — had 
inhaled  something  of  the  spirit  of  the  city  :  they 
turned  instinctively  from  the  claim  made  by  Patullo's 
bent,  seedy  body  and  pitiable  movements. 

"  Ah,  he'll  remember  it,  poor  man,"  Mrs.  Trathbye 
said  kindly.  Neither  she  nor  Aunt  Caroline  would 
have  treated  a  stranger  with  the  least  indelicacy  in 
such  a  matter :  yet  they  obstreperously  reminded 
each  other  of  debts  of  a  few  pence. 

Mrs.  Trathbye,  carefully  wiping  the  china,  which 
she  had  brought  with  her  from  Ireland,  looked  up  at 
her  daughter  in  a  strange,  tentative,  half-afraid  way. 

"  I   was   rather    disappointed    in   Mr.    Quentin," 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  143 

Mrs.  Trathbye  said.  "  He  has  an  impediment — 
you  didn't  tell  us  that,  Dillie.  He  isn't  at  all  good- 
looking  ?  " 

It  was  a  question,  but  failed  to  be  provocative. 
Drusilla  looked  with  happy  confident  eyes  into  her 
mother's  :  her  speech  was  quite  calm,  quite  sincere. 

"  He  looks  very  nice  sometimes,"  she  said. 

Mrs.  Trathbye's  eyes  were  averted.  "  Your  aunt 
will  have  to  stay  in  my  room  to-night,"  she  said,  "  so 
Kathleen  and  I  must  make  up  a  bed  in  the  parlour." 

Michael,  walking  in  his  rapid  yet  dreaming  way,  was 
thinking  of  the  stuff  that  Racie  had  hinted  about  the 
Trathbyes.  They  were  charming,  refined  women, 
witty  and  playful  to  each  other.  Their  voices  and 
laughter,  full  of  western  music,  had  delighted  him. 
Mrs.  Trathbye's  accent  was  almost  purely  Irish  :  she 
was  evidently  a  creature  curiously  unadaptable, 
idyllically  simple  in  her  point  of  view.  The  girls' 
speech  had  been  modified  by  their  early  removal  to 
Glasgow  :  but  their  vocabulary  kept  many  Irish  words 
and  their  soft  voices  slid  naturally  into  the  rise  and 
fall  that  Michael  performed  by  conscious  practice.  .  .  . 
They  did  not  seem  to  be  very  poor  at  all :  the  house 
was  very  pretty,  he  thought,  clean  and  dainty  :  the 
china  was  beautiful,  and  he  remembered  a  glow  and 
glitter  as  of  gold  and  silver  and  quantities  of  flowers. 
No  detail  was  very  clear  in  his  memory,  but  there  was 
an  abiding  sense  of  sweet  femininity,  of  the  absence 
of  the  masculine  side  of  life  with  its  grosser  needs. 
How  kind  they  had  been  to  him  !  It  was  all  so  little, 
their  life,  so  pure  and  gentle,  so  quaint  in  its  preju- 
dices and  timidities.  It  had  made  him  very  happy 
to  see  Drusilla  at  home.  She  had  showed  him  her 


144          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

books  and  once  or  twice  their  hands  had  touched. 
She  had  spoken  of  going  to  Mass  and  this  supposed 
revelation  of  her  church  had  made  her  seem  more 
than  ever  the  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  Ireland. 
She  came  to  him  as  it  were  to  bring  him  back  to  his 
own  country,  the  lost  spiritual  home  of  which  the 
green  Ireland  of  earth  was  only  the  symbol.  "  Rosa- 
leen,"  Michael  said  to  himself,  "  Rosaleen  .  .  ." 
Racie  was  not  there  to  remind  him  that  Rosaleen  was 
dark,  and  Michael  went  on  : 

"  /  could  scale  the  blue  air : 
I  could  plough  the  high  hills. 
Oh,  I  could  kneel  all  night  in  prayer 
To  heal  your  many  ills  ..." 

Many  ills  ?  Somehow  he  thought  suddenly  of  that 
note  of  expectancy  in  her  voice. 

Expectancy  of  what  ?  Not,  surely,  of  deliverance 
from  woes,  but  only  of  the  untried  life  to  come,  of  the 
sure  slow  steps  of  Love ;  only  a  waiting  without 
wistfulness.  For  the  barriers  about  this  princess 
were  soft  and  sweet,  all  of  roses. 

Michael  saw  two  figures  on  the  pavement  a  little 
distance  in  front  of  him — the  figure  of  a  boy  scurrying 
along  and  the  figure  of  a  man,  half  dragged  by  him, 
staggering  in  his  wake.  The  movement  suggested 
something  different  from  drunkenness.  Michael, 
hastening  up  to  him,  saw  old  Patullo. 

Patullo  was  lurching,  his  knees  bent :  he  stared 
heavily  at  Michael  and  his  voice  came,  quiet,  with  a 
dreadful  kind  of  patience. 

"  I've  had  bad  news,  Mr.  Quentin,"  Patullo  said. 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  145 

III 

Not  far  from  the  Eire  Club  Mission  Rooms  there  was 
a  poor  respectable  street  called  Seymour  Road,  lined 
for  some  distance  with  tenements  of  shops  and  houses, 
then  with  hoardings  and  yards  and  an  aged  square 
house  or  two  set  in  a  grass-plot  among  trees.  Sey- 
mour Road  ended  at  the  wall  of  White-meadow 
Cemetery — an  old  grey  wall  on  which  lichens  grew 
and  over  which  the  tips  of  white  obelisks  showed. 

Old  Patullo,  with  Michael  and  the  breathless  boy, 
stopped  at  the  first  of  the  square  houses — a  black 
block  divided  now  into  half  a  dozen  little  dwellings. 
A  street  lamp  opposite  showed  the  iron  railings  and 
gate,  the  withering  trees  and  the  long  dirty  grass.  A 
clothes-line  was  stretched  between  the  railings  and 
one  of  the  trees,  and  pale  garments  wavered  in  the 
darkness. 

There  was  a  movement  close  beside  them  and  a 
woman  in  a  heavy  shawl  came  up  to  Patullo. 

"  He  found  yez  all  right  then  ?  "  she  said.  "  He's 
a  good  boy." 

Michael  recognised  her  deep,  tender  voice  :  it  was 
Mrs.  Quinn,  who  came  to  the  meetings  at  the  club 
rooms,  bringing  the  little  boy,  Miss  Morland's 
favourite. 

"  I  couldn't  get  a  clear  account  from  him,"  Patullo 
said  in  a  curious,  pleading,  bullying  way.  "  What  is 
it  ?  How's  he  now  ?  " 

"  Ah,  God  help  you — the  wee  cratur's  gone,"  Mrs. 
Quinn  said.  "  God  help  you,  Mr.  Patullo." 

They  went  round  the  house  by  a  narrow  path,  damp 
and  smelling  of  flower-pots,  and  mounted  a  flight  of 
stairs  at  the  back.  A  wash  of  light  came  from  a 

K 


146          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

muslin- curtained  window,  and  Michael  looked  at  Mrs. 
Quinn's  face  as  he  always  did  when  she  came  to  the 
club-rooms.  It  was  a  face  of  noble  lines,  pure-browed, 
with  a  wearied  pallor :  the  dark  grey  eyes  were 
singularly  honest  and  gentle.  She  was  speaking  to 
the  boy,  commending  him  for  his  quickness. 

"  Run  away  now  like  a  good  boy,  and  God  bless 
you." 

The  room  they  entered  was  full  of  clothes — coats, 
dresses,  and  cloaks  hanging  from  the  walls,  hats  and 
boots  stacked  on  shelves.  Michael  remembered  that 
Mrs.  Quinn,  an  industrious  and  fairly  well-to-do 
woman,  was  in  the  old-clothes  trade.  He  looked 
round,  wondering  who  had  worn  those  garments,  what 
pretty  girls  had  smiled  from  under  the  crushed,  dusty 
hats  or  snuggled  into  the  wraps.  There  was  one  hat 
somewhat  like  the  brown  one  that  Drusilla  had  worn. 

"  Where  ?  .  .  .  "  Michael  heard  Patullo  say. 

"  He's  beyant  in  the  bedroom,  Mr.  Patullo.  But 
come  into  the  kitchen  first.  Ah  then,  come."  There 
was  none  of  the  common  ghoulish  delight  in  details  of 
death  and  sickness  :  Mrs.  Quinn  silently  led  Patullo 
to  a  chair  in  the  sparkling  little  kitchen,  crammed 
with  furniture.  There  was  a  shelf  full  of  children's 
books,  a  little  chair  in  a  corner,  a  rocking-horse. 
Patullo,  staring  at  them  all,  sat  down.  Mrs.  Quinn 
moved  a  hissing  kettle  to  the  middle  of  the  hot 
glittering  range ;  then,  looking  at  Michael  and  com- 
pressing her  lips,  went  out  into  the  passage.  Michael 
stood  beside  her,  passive,  as  if  in  a  dream,  staring  at 
the  shut  door  of  the  bedroom. 

"  Ye'd  like  to  .  .  .  ?  "  Mrs.  Quinn  said,  and  opened 
it.  Michael  saw  another  little  room,  stuffed  with 
furniture,  with  white  woolly  rugs  on  the  carpeted 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  147 

floor,  with  pink  and  blue  vases  on  the  chimney-piece, 
with  a  child's  cot  beside  the  aggressive  brass  bedstead. 
The  cot  was  empty  and  the  body  of  the  little  boy, 
brown-haired  and  smiling,  was  laid  on  the  bed  and 
covered  with  a  thick  white  quilt. 

"  I  knew  you  were  fond  of  the  wee  cratur,"  Mrs. 
Quinn  said,  as  if  to  justify  her  action  in  showing  the 
dead  boy. 

The  words  and  the  moving  sight  roused  Michael. 
He  began  to  reason — to  link  Patullo's  overwhelm- 
ment  with  the  child's  death.  Patullo  must  have 
known  the  child — got  to  care  about  him.  .  .  .  How  ? 
Patullo  had  never  to  his  knowledge  come  to  the 
Mission  Rooms. 

"  An'  the  pleasure  he  tuk  in  your  stories  an'  your 
singin'  and  dancin'.  .  .  .  Ah,  goodness  gracious ! " 
Mrs.  Quinn  said.  "  It  will  be  quare  an  sorry  Miss 
Morland  will  be." 

Miss  Morland  ?  Michael  tried  to  understand  what 
she  had  to  do  with  it.  He  remembered  that  it  was 
Patullo  who  had  first  recommended  Miss  Morland, 
that  Miss  Morland  was  an  old  friend  of  Patullo, 
had  been  coached  by  him  before  her  teaching  days. 
.  .  .  The  thing  did  not  seem  more  clear. 

* '  H-how  did  the  little  boy  die  ? ' '  Michael  stammered . 

"  It  was  pewnoma,  Mr.  Quentin.  He  got  worse,  an' 
us  thinking  it  was  only  a  cold.  I'd  sent  word  to 
Miss  Morland,  but  she  was  away  in  London  on  some 
Votes  for  Women  business.  She  does  a  lot  of  that : 
she's  quare  and  clever.  .  .  .  Come  into  the  kitchen, 
Mr.  Quentin,  and  have  a  cup  of  tea." 

"  N-no,  thank  you,"  Michael  answered,  suddenly 
horribly  oppressed.  "  I'll  wait  outside — will  you  tell 
him  ?  " 


148          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Outside  rain  had  begun  to  fall :  the  eaves  dripped 
and  the  dead  leaves  on  the  flags  whispered  and 
whistled.  Michael  walked  to  the  front  gate  and  stared 
along  the  shimmering  road  with  its  blurred  lamp- 
gleams  to  where  the  white  ghostly  obelisks  peeped 
over  the  cemetery  wall. 

In  a  surprisingly  short  time  Patullo  came  behind 
him. 

"  I  must  apologise  for  keeping  you  waiting,  Mr. 
Quentin." 

"  Let's  walk,"  Michael  said  abruptly,  to  signify  that 
time  was  not  precious  to  him.  He  had  lost  the 
stupefied  feeling  produced  by  the  swift  transition 
from  his  dreams  of  a  Maeterlinck  princess  among  roses 
to  this  picture  of  Seymour  Road  with  its  stone-cutter's 
yards  and  insanitary  houses.  The  whole  thing  had 
seemed  unreal,  a  ghostly  vision  contrasting  with  the 
vivid  hues  of  his  dream.  But  now  his  heart  leaped 
out  to  old  Patullo  :  he  was  all  alert  in  his  longing  to 
understand,  to  help  and  comfort.  He  prayed  as  they 
trudged  along  the  dreary  road  in  the  wind  and  rain  ; 
and  suddenly  Patullo  spoke  : 

"  I  suppose  you've  guessed  he  was  my  own  child, 
Mr.  Quentin." 

A  long  silence. 

"  N-no  !  I  didn't— I  didn't  know,"  Michael  faltered. 

"  He  was  nearly  seven,"  Patullo  said  in  his  cultured 
voice.  "  His  mother  drinks.  I  took  him  away  from 
her  four  years  ago,  but  I  couldn't  keep  him  with  me 

at  my  flat.     There  were  my  pupils  to  consider ' 

Patullo's  voice  faded  away  with  a  suggestion  of  deceit 
and  he  glanced  up  at  Michael — "  They'd  have  passed 
remarks.  .  .  .  She  made  horrible  scenes — I  should 
have  been  afraid  of  her  coming  up  and  making  scenes." 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  149 

"  I'm  sorry,"  Michael  said,  deeply  touched  by  the 
thing  that  Patullo  had  left  unsaid.  His  own  drunken- 
ness, too,  was  a  spectacle  that  the  child  must  not  see. 

"I  did  my  best  for  him,"  Patullo  said.  "Mrs. 
Quinn's  a  good  woman.  She  used  to  come  round  our 
way  to  do  business  with  my  wife.  She — it's  a  horrible 
thing  to  tell,  Mr.  Quentin,  but  it's  true — she  used  to 
sell  her  clothes,  and  mine,  and  things  in  the  house, 
to  buy  .  .  .  intoxicants  .  .  .  when  I  refused  to  give 
her  money." 

"  How  awful,"  Michael  said  as  Patullo  paused 
appealingly. 

"  I  hadn't  very  much  money  to  give,  you  see,  Mr. 
Quentin,"  Patullo  said,  "  though  I  was  doing  fairly 
well  then.  .  .  .  That  sort  of  thing  damaged  me  very 
much  with  my  pupils." 

"  Of  course,"  Michael  said.     "  So  it  would  indeed." 

"  You  know  how  you'd  feel  yourself,"  Patullo  said. 
"  How  any  young  gentleman  would  feel.  And 
parents  don't  like  sending  their  sons  and  daughters 
to  a  house  where  there's  anything  of  that  sort.  It  got 
to  be  distinctly  unpleasant  and  disgraceful  and  at  last 
we  were  obliged  to  have  separate  establishments.  .  .  . 
I  did  my  best  for  the  child.  We  " — Patullo  cleared 
his  throat — "  moved  in  a  rather  narrow  circle.  I  had 
got  rather  cut  off  from  my  friends  since  my  marriage. 
...  I  have  a  woman  who  comes  up  to  *  do  for '  me 
in  my  flat  in  Lochaber  Gardens — a  most  respectable 
woman  ;  but  she's  not  the  kind  of  person  I  could  have 
trusted  with  the  boy.  It  wouldn't  have  been  a  proper 
life  for  a  child  at  the  most  susceptible  period  of  his  life 
when  the  young  idea  is  just  beginning  to  shoot." 
Patullo  smiled  weakly.  "  I  did  my  best  for  him. 
I  felt  I  was  bound  to  remove  him  from  his  home 


150          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

influences.  He  had  to  attend  school  with  rather 
uncouth  little  specimens — but,  bless  me,  Mr.  Quentin, 
that's  the  true  democratic  spirit." 

"  I  wish  I'd  been  sent  to  a  poor  school,"  Michael 
said  earnestly. 

"  Why,  there  you  are  !  "  Patullo  exclaimed,  grati- 
fied. "  I've  heard  people  of  the  best  position  express 
just  your  opinion,  Mr.  Quentin — people  who  had  me 
down  to  their  country  seats  and  used  to  send  me 
motoring  and  yachting  with  their  sons.  .  .  .  He'd 
picked  up  one  or  two  queer  expressions,  but  Miss 
Morland  would  soon  have  got  him  out  of  that :  she 
had  him  up  often.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Quinn  was  fond  of  him 
and  she's  more  real  refinement  than  the  average  nurse 
or  nursery  governess." 

Michael  made  a  gesture  disavowing  the  need  for 
apologies.  The  thing  that  filled  his  heart  with  sur- 
prise and  dismay  was  the  normality  of  Patullo  in  his 
grief.  His  voice  was  a  little  changed  :  but  there  was 
no  difference  in  his  manner  nor  in  his  face.  He 
shambled  along,  girt  about  with  a  kind  of  unapproach- 
ableness  by  his  commonplaceness — Patullo  the  tutor, 
with  a  certain  pedantic  niceness  of  diction,  with 
humble  black  coat-tails  hanging  over  his  thin  legs, 
with  his  tobacco-stained  forefinger  and  his  alcohol- 
laden  breath.  Michael  felt  baffled  by  this  dreary 
patience  which  accepted  sorrow  and  failure  as  things 
of  course.  He  fell  into  a  silence  which  Patullo  tried 
to  break  by  courteous  little  remarks  about  the  neigh- 
bourhood, the  growth  of  picture  palaces,  and  the 
Insurance  Bill.  His  steps  began  to  lag  lamentably 
and  Michael  feared  that  they  must  soon  board  a  car 
and  cast  away  his  chance  to  speak. 

"  Mr.  Patullo "  he  began,  frantic. 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  151 

Patullo  was  very  sensitive  :  he  stood  still,  looking 
at  Michael  with  eyes  nervously  emotional. 

"  Mr.  Patullo,  it's  awfully  difficult  for  me  to  speak," 
Michael  said.  "  I  c-can't  make  people  understand. 
It's  funny — I  think  there  must  be  something  wrong 
with  my  vocabulary."  He  made  a  leaping  movement 
towards  Patullo,  who,  about  to  contradict  him,  stopped 
in  a  startled  state.  "I'm  awfully  sorry,"  Michael 
said.  "It's  so  kind  of  you  to  have  told  me  .  .  . 
about  things.  Will  you  tell  me  if  I  can  do  anything 
to  help  you  .  .  .  anything  at  all  ?  " 

"  You're  exceedingly  kind,  Mr.  Quentin,"  Patullo 
said,  walking  on  with  downcast  eyes. 

"  Nothing  ?  .  .  .  It's  hard  on  me  then,"  Michael 
said.  "  That's  always  the  way  with  me  :  I  want  to 
help  people  :  I  don't  seem  able  to  get  doing  it.  It 
must  be  my  own  fault :  I  can't  have  enough  of  sym- 
pathy to  be  able  to  give  them  the  things  they  really 
want.  I  must  be  just  filling  a  place  and  grabbing  and 
getting  my  good  out  of  other  people's  pain — just  all 
the  things  I  imagine  I'm  living  to  condemn.' 

"  Mr.  Quentin  .  .  .  it's  not  true,"  Patullo  said 
agitatedly.  He  turned  and  began  to  walk  slowly 
back  over  the  road  that  they  had  traversed.  "  You 
do  yourself  less  than  justice,  Mr.  Quentin,"  Patullo 
said  in  his  formal  tones.  "  Believe  me,  I  have  seen 
a  good  many  young  men  develop  and — I  may  say  it 
without  flattery,  Mr.  Quentin — I  have  never  seen  one 
with  parts  to  equal  yours  or  with  a  disposition  better 
calculated  to  ...  endear  him  to  his  fellows." 

"  Well,  then,"  Michael  said,  pleased  and  blushing, 
"  tell  me  if  I  can  do  anything.  .  .  .  Now  or  at  any 
time  ?  .  .  .  Anything  ?  " 

He  slipped  his  arm  under  Patullo's,  tightly  clutching 


152          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

the  black  sleeve.  It  was  piteous  that  Patullo,  at  his 
time  of  life,  should  have  no  overcoat,  or  at  least  no  one 
at  home  to  tell  him  to  put  on  his  overcoat. 

It  was  rather  disappointing  that  Patullo's  arm  made 
no  response  :  but  Michael  kept  his  hold.  They  passed 
a  hoarding,  a  patchwork  of  colours  in  the  splashes  of 
light  from  the  street  lamps :  a  girl's  face,  wide- 
mouthed  and  huge-eyed,  laughed  over  a  heathery 
landscape  and  cattle-piece  advertising  a  beef  extract. 
Michael  found  his  mind  yielding  to  the  idea  of  this 
poster's  suggestion  of  the  glories  of  earth  and  sky  and 
living  creatures  used  by  each  man  for  the  extraction 
of  his  own  little  commodity.  .  .  .  They  saw,  where 
the  hoarding  ended,  a  stone-cutter's  yard  with  pale 
glistening  angular  shapes  of  granite  and  marble  ;  and 
far  off  similar  pale  shapes,  shadowed  in  the  night, 
were  peeping  over  the  cemetery  wall. 

"  I  haven't  money  to  bury  him  decently,"  Patullo 
said  hoarsely,  in  a  low  voice  that  was  shocked  and 
ashamed. 

"  Oh  .  .  ." 

"  There's  money  owing  to  me — several  pounds  that 
I  ought  to  get  in  a  day  or  two,"  Patullo  said,  with 
more  of  his  usual  manner.  "  In  fact  it's  overdue. 
I  never  like  to  press  people.  ...  I  could  ask  them  to 
give  me  credit  only  they  might  be  unpleasant  and, 
in  a  thing  like  this,  it  isn't  seemly."  He  was  again 
artlessly  pathetic. 

"  Oh  !  "  Michael  said  in  horror  and  pity.  That 
people  should  have  to  think  about  money  in  connec- 
tion with  such  a  thing  !  .  .  .  He  saw  the  poor  streets 
of  the  city  in  a  dreadful  illumination  :  thousands  of 
little  homes,  unprotected,  always  on  the  verge  of 
destruction  ;  thousands  of  funerals  toiling  to  and  fro 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  158 

in  rain  and  fog  or  in  sunshine.  Sometimes  there  was 
a  black  box  under  the  carriage  and  the  poor  mourners 
rode  above  their  dead.  Sometimes  the  coffin  was 
carried  in  the  hinder  part  of  a  hideous  coach  of  two 
compartments.  Once,  going  round  with  Racie,  who 
was  writing  his  specials  for  The  Weekly  Mercury, 
Michael  had  seen  a  red-eyed  man  walking  in  and  out  of 
crowds  with  a  two-foot-long  coffin  in  his  arms.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Patullo,  let  me  lend  you — take  it  from  me — 
take  it.  Will  you  ?  Do,  for  God's  sake  !  ...  I'm 
sick  of  this  nonsense  !  Why  on  the  living  earth  should 
one  human  being  refuse  anything  another  wants  to 
do  for  him  ?  " 

Patullo  looked  at  the  tears  falling  down  Michael's 
face,  then  lowered  his  eyes  and  walked  on.  Michael 
felt  in  his  pocket  for  his  sovereign-purse,  in  another 
pocket  for  notes. 

"  There  ...  I  don't  know  how  much  you  need  for 
things  like  that :  but  please  don't  count  it — don't 
remember  it  or  try  to  make  it  go  far.  It's  awful  you 
should  have  to  bother.  Tell  me  to-morrow  and  I'll 
give  you  more.  You'll  want  to  get  carriages  and 
flowers  .  .  .  and  silver  mounts  on  the  .  .  .  thing. 
And  you'll  want  to  take  him  to  some  nice  place,  out 
in  the  country.  .  .  ." 

Patullo' s  fingers  closed  over  the  dark  paper  notes 
with  the  little  hard  lump  of  the  sovereigns  folded  in 
their  midst.  They  turned  and  went  towards  the  car 
station. 

"  I  was  looking  for  an  undertaker's,"  said  Patullo, 
who  kept  peering  about.  "  I  think  there  is  one  down 
that  side  street — I  see  a  lighted  window.  Yes." 

"  May  I  come  to  see  you  to-morrow  ?  "  Michael 
asked,  one  foot  on  the  car.  "  Good  night." 


154          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  Good  night.  Thank  you,"  Patullo  said.  There 
was  a  solemn  stateliness  in  his  manner  as  if  he  were 
taking  part  in  some  noble  ceremonial. 

Before  Michael  reached  Mrs.  Wylie's,  he  had  formed 
a  plan  for  endowing  a  Burial  Society.  It  amazed  him 
that  he  had  not  had  this  idea  before.  He  would 
engage  a  number  of  secret  officials  who  would  go  here 
and  there  finding  out  poor  people  whose  beloved  dead 
were  in  danger  of  being  buried  parochially.  The  great 
difficulty  was  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  patronage. 
Michael  had  the  fear,  too,  that  in  yielding  to  the 
mourners'  wishes  in  the  matters  of  black  plumes  and 
wreaths  of  immortelles,  he  might  be  retarding  progress 
by  fostering  false  standards  of  aestheticism.  Yet 
what  could  one  do  ?  One  could  not  talk  about  the 
poetry  of  burial  by  fire  to  beings  who  shuddered  at 
the  bogey- word  "  cremation."  One  could  not  make 
real  the  ugliness  of  blacks  to  mourners  whose  anguish 
of  inarticulateness  must  vent  itself  in  a  swathing  of 
sombre  clothes.  .  .  .  Michael,  with  a  regretful  thought 
of  Rollo,  began  to  plan  his  House  for  the  Dead :  he 
sought  for  appropriate  lines  to  have  carved  in  the 
entablatures,  and  remembered  Spenser's  : 

.  .  .  In  seemlie  sort  their  corses  to  engrave, 
And  deck  with  daintie  flowers  their  brydall  bed 
That  to  their  heavenly  spouse  both  sweet  and  brave 
They  might  appear  when  He  their  souls  should  save. 

The  wondrous  workmanship  of  God's  own  mould 
Whose  face  he  made  all  beasts  to  fear  and  gave 
All  in  his  hand  even  dead  we  honour  should. 
Ah,  dearest  God,  me  graunt  I  dead  be  not  defouled  ! 


THE  HEDGE  OF  THORNS  155 

As  the  lines  swept,  musical,  through  his  being,  he 
again  remembered  Rollo ;  dead  at  the  beginning  of 
their  swift,  sure  friendship,  which  had  seemed  in  truth 
to  continue,  not  to  commence.  Michael  had  often 
fancied  that  Rollo's  spirit  lurked  about  The  Corner 
House,  that  his  voice  might  be  heard  calling  from 
room  to  room.  In  the  white  studio,  Michael  had 
often  prayed  for  the  soul  of  his  friend  wandering  in 
unknown  places. 

The  vision  of  the  room  came  back  to  him — the 
searching  light,  the  roses,  the  rood.  Lately  he  had 
had  book-shelves  put  up  and  had  filled  them  with 
books  specially  bound  in  white — collections  of  myths, 
the  great  theosophical  works  of  H.  P.  Blavatsky  and 
Annie  Besant,  the  poems  of  Francis  Thompson  and 
W.  B.  Yeats,  the  lives  of  many  Romanist  saints,  the 
Bible,  and  Thomas  a  Kempis.  He  thought  now  with 
anger  of  the  cost  of  this  fad,  which  had  not  improved 
the  room,  which  had  detracted  somewhat  from  the 
austerity  which  was  its  key-note.  Nearly  a  hundred 
pounds  for  white  books  while  people,  in  side  streets, 
woebegone,  were  struggling  for  shillings  to  pay  for 
black  clothes.  The  white  books  were  beautiful  and 
the  black  garments  ugly.  What  of  that  ?  Let  them 
fling  their  ugliness,  shriekingly,  in  the  face  of  the 
heartless  world. 

The  figure  of  Thomas  Patullo,  like  a  doleful  strike- 
leader,  seemed  to  emerge  from  the  sorrowful  black 
crowd.  Michael  felt  keenly  grateful  to  Patullo  :  he 
at  least  had  not  shown  the  cruel  contempt  of  the 
respectable  poor  for  a  helpless  young  man  of  great 
possessions.  Patullo — Michael  thought,  with  a  warm- 
ing of  the  heart — would  let  him  do  more.  He  would 
go  to  see  Patullo  next  day. 


156          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

The  Trathbyes'  hall  door  was  opposite  to  Patullo's 
on  the  same  landing.  Drusilla  might  come  out  ?  Mrs. 
Trathbye  might  come  out  and  ask  him  to  come  in.  ... 

Ah  !  He  would  bring  a  book  for  Miss  Trathbye. 
Had  she  read  Spenser  ? 

He  saw  two  boys  considering  him  and  wondered 
if  he  had  murmured  the  lines  of  Spenser  aloud.  Sud- 
denly self-conscious,  he  hurried  wincingly  from  their 
sight :  he  was  sure  that  one  of  them  said  : 

"  Loonie." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR 


DRUSILLA,  with  an  anxious  glance  at  the  door,  opened 
her  writing-case.  It  was  full  of  written  sheets,  and 
she  scanned  them,  critical  of  their  neatness  rather 
than  of  the  style  and  matter  of  the  composition.  At 
the  top  of  the  first  page  she  had  written  :  "  The 
Choice  of  Colours  in  Dress." 

The  article  seemed  quite  as  good  as  most  things 
that  she  had  read  in  women's  papers  :  it  was  much 
better  than  Aunt  Caroline's  columns,  she  thought : 
she  had  been  told  in  the  art  shop  that  she  had  a 
wonderful  eye  for  colour  ;  and  she  spent  a  great  deal 
of  her  spare  time  considering  the  windows  of  dress- 
makers and  milliners,  and  in  imagination  correcting 
faults  in  their  colour- schemes. 

She  pictured  her  article  in  print  in  The  Glasgow 
Newsboy  and  the  coming  of  a  cheque — for  ten  shillings 
or  even  a  pound  ?  She  would  give  it  to  her  mother, 
who  would  be  surprised  and  (she  hoped)  pleased. 
Aunt  Caroline  was  not  well :  the  cold  lingered  in  her 
defenceless  little  system.  Mrs.  Trathbye  spoke  of 
calling  in  a  doctor — "  But  ah,  goodness  gracious,  how 
are  we  going  to  pay  a  doctor's  bill  ?  " 

Michael's  uncle  had  written  a  courteous  letter, 
promising  to  keep  Miss  Caroline  Trathbye  in  mind, 
but  as  yet  nothing  had  followed  Drusilla's  attempt  at 
journalism,  begun  secretly  in  defiance  and  assuming 
the  air  of  a  philanthropic  undertaking. 

157 


158          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

She  was  going  to  steal  across  and  show  the  sheets 
to  Mr.  Patullo,  who  had  so  kindly  offered  to  point  out 
faults.  His  advice  seemed  very  sensible  :  it  was  true 
that  any  one  could  write.  Drusilla  would  have  pre- 
ferred needlework,  and  thought  with  an  ever-recurrent 
throe  of  the  shining  studio  above  the  art  shop,  the 
odours  of  stains  and  polishes,  the  hollow  sound  of  her 
needle  plunging  deftly  through  the  tightly  stretched 
stuff  in  her  embroidery-ring.  The  manager,  fair- 
bearded  and  courteous,  had  looked  at  her  with  kind 
eyes :  so  had  the  lame  young  man  who  did  brass- 
work.  .  .  . 

Drusilla  put  on  her  hat  and  took  a  volume  of 
H.  G.  Wells  that  Cowie  had  lent  her.  ("  His  ideas 
aren't  practicable,  of  course,"  Cowie  had  said.  "  You 
can't  change  human  nater.  Still,  it'll  do  you  no 
harm  to  get  acquainted  with  him  :  I've  learned  a  lot 
from  him  myself  " — with  that  air  of  granting  a  certi- 
ficate at  which  Drusilla  always  laughed,  delightfully 
quizzical  and  friendly.)  She  must  go  into  the  park 
and  read  so  as  to  explain  her  absence  ;  and  must  slip 
into  Patullo's  flat  as  softly  as  possible,  trusting  to 
being  unheard  by  her  mother  and  Aunt  Caroline.  For 
the  rest,  the  idea  of  reading  in  the  park  was  a  pleasant 
one  :  the  September  day,  following  the  wet  night  of 
Michael's  visit,  was  beautiful,  a  glory  of  blue  sky,  of 
dazzling  clouds,  of  white  sunlight  and  violet  shadows. 
Drusilla  often  went  there  with  Amy  Cartwright,  who 
lived  in  the  flat  below.  She  felt  happy  as  she  shut 
her  own  hall-door,  and,  after  a  pause  of  half-mirthful 
listening,  tapped  timidly  at  Patullo's  door. 

There  was  an  irresponsive  silence  within  the  house, 
and  she  ventured  another  tap.  Then  she  started  as 
she  heard  some  one  enter  the  close  below. 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  159 

"  Oh  bother  !  "  Drusilla  exclaimed.  "  These  Glas- 
gow tenements  are  so  fussy  :  the  stairs  are  never  free 
from  people  for  a  minute  at  a  time."  The  Trathbye 
girls  had  inherited  from  their  mother  a  dogma  that 
they  were  not  at  home  in  a  Glasgow  tenement  but 
had  really  spent  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  in  a 
large  ancestral  house  in  Gal  way.  "  My  girls  are  well 
behaved  because  they  were  brought  up  in  the  country," 
Mrs.  Trathbye  sometimes  said  almost  in  good  faith  ; 
and  she  and  Aunt  Caroline  were  full  of  reminiscences 
of  old  jests  and  adventures  "  at  home  at  Croaghnai- 
hill  " — referred  to  so  often  that  the  girls'  minds  had 
long  ago  yielded  to  the  implication  that  they  too 
looked  back  to  Croaghnaihill  as  an  unfaded  reality. 
Drusilla,  in  her  nervous  state,  stood  haughtily  as  the 
steps  mounted  the  stairs.  They  were  like  a  man's 
steps,  big,  noisy,  and  slouching. 

"  Oh  ..."  Drusilla,  swirling  round,  saw  Miss 
Morland.  The  terror  of  Grace's  loud  voice  made  the 
girl's  face  whiten. 

"  What  are  you  doing  here  ?  "  Grace's  manner  was 
coarse,  there  was  a  revolting  fury  of  suspicion  in  her 
eyes. 

"  Be  quiet,"  Drusilla  said,  disgusted.  "  Don't 
shout,  please,  Grace.  I  don't  want  them  to  know  I'm 
here."  She  glanced  towards  the  Trathbyes'  door. 

"  Why  not  ?  What  business  have  you  here  ?  .  .  . 
What  are  you  looking  so  terrified  for  ?  " 

"  I  wish  you'd  be  quiet,"  Drusilla  repeated.  "  If 
you  want  to  see  me  will  you  go  downstairs  and  wait  ? 
I'm  going  into  the  park.  ...  I  want  to  see  Mr. 
Patullo  about  something  he  promised  to  do." 

"  What  could  he  promise  to  do  for  you  ?  "  Grace 
shouted. 


160          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Drusilla  was  moved  partly  by  her  timidity,  partly 
by  her  lingering  sense  of  discipleship  ;  chiefly  by  the 
gentleness  that  was  in  her  making  it  impossible  for 
her  to  armour  herself  in  contempt.  Her  knowledge 
of  the  source  of  Grace's  disquiet  was  as  yet  scarcely 
more  than  subconscious,  but  she  tried  to  soothe  the 
excited  woman. 

"  He  offered  to  correct  a  paper  I  was  writing.  ..." 

Some  of  the  fierceness  went  out  of  Miss  Morland's 
face.  She  made  one  of  her  long,  slouching  steps, 
sliding  her  foot  between  Drusilla  and  the  door. 

"  Haven't  you  heard  then  ?  Haven't  you  heard 
anything  ?  "  There  was  an  exultation  of  importance 
in  Miss  Morland's  voice.  "  Mr.  Patullo  is  in  great 
trouble,  poor  fellow.  He  wrote  to  me,  asking  me, 
begging  me  to  come  to  him.  Isn't  it  extraordinary  ? 
He  turns  to  me  in  such  a  way  ...  so  awfully 
pathetic.  .  .  ." 

Miss  Morland  was  speaking  in  the  inconsequent, 
soliloquising  way  peculiar  to  her.  Drusilla  had  heard 
people  comment  on  it  as  a  result  of  long  loneliness  : 
she  herself  was  inclined  to  attribute  it  to  that  past 
sorrow  which  had  shattered  Miss  Morland's  resolves 
and  slackened  all  her  powers.  Something  with  a  man 
in  it  ?  ... 

The  light,  coming  brilliantly  from  above,  fell  on 
Grace  Morland's  pale  face,  foolish,  ignoble,  touching  : 
there  were  heavy  lines  in  her  skin  and  the  scanty 
black  and  grey  hair  was  thrust  back  under  a  girlish 
conical  hat  of  maize-coloured  straw.  She  wore  an  old 
coat  of  violet  pastel  cloth  and  a  thin  grey  frock,  very 
short-skirted.  Her  brown  boots  were  wrinkled  and 
dirty  and  her  gloves,  rolled  into  a  ball,  deformed  one 
of  her  pockets.  Her  clothes,  at  the  time  of  their 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  161 

purchasing,  had  probably  cost  three  times  as  much  as 
Brasilia's  :  but  in  her  fatigue  and  dishevelment,  she 
looked  like  some  uncouth  monster  affronting  a  dainty 
princess  in  browns  and  yellows. 

"  I'd  better  go  away  .  .  .  I'm  sorry  he's  in  trouble 
...  I  can  see  him  again,"  Brasilia  said  in  confusion. 
She  had  thought  that  she  heard  footsteps  in  her 
mother's  flat.  Of  late  Mrs.  Trathbye  had  exaggerated 
a  habit  of  listening  and  pretending  till  long  afterwards 
that  she  had  not  heard.  ...  It  would  not  be  possible 
to  ask  Grace  to  come  in  to  see  her  mother  and  aunt. 
Unexpected  visitors  caused  dismay  in  the  Trathbyes' 
flat ;  and  Grace  Morland  was  disliked  by  the  whole 
family,  partly  because  of  her  oddities  and  affectations, 
partly  because  the  acquaintanceship  with  her  marked 
the  beginning  of  a  certain  self-assertion  in  Brasilia. 
.  .  .  They  were  curt  in  speech  to  Miss  Morland,  and 
Aunt  Caroline  mentioned  coals  and  lights  and  the 
trouble  of  extra  dishes. 

"  We-ell,  when  shall  I  see  you  again  ?  "  Miss 
Morland  said,  suddenly  friendly,  as  Brasilia  turned 
away.  "  You're  going  into  the  park  ?  " 

"  I'll  wait  for  you  in  the  Chrysanthemum  Walk," 
Brasilia  said,  and  ran  downstairs  with  her  poor  sheets 
shut  into  the  volume  of  H.  G.  Wells. 

In  the  park  she  meditated,  walking  slowly  between 
the  splendours  of  the  blooms.  Violet  shadows  lay 
on  the  wet,  sunny,  blue-gleaming  path  :  golden  leaves, 
transfused  with  sunlight,  hung  on  the  boughs  already 
half  stripped.  In  Brasilia's  brown  costume,  her  wide 
brown  hat  trimmed  with  yellow,  and  the  shadowed 
reds  of  her  hair,  the  hues  of  the  flowers  were  transposed 
to  a  lower  key.  Only  the  crimson  of  her  lips,  the  pinks 
and  whites  of  her  face,  had  no  counterparts  in  these 

L 


162          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

autumn  blossoms,  but  were  of  summer,  of  the  time  of 
roses. 

Brasilia  thought  .  .  .  lately  she  had  begun  to  feel 
doubtful  if  Grace  had  had  a  man  in  her  past  life — a 
man  whose  voice  broke  at  parting,  whose  eyes  over- 
flowed, whose  hand  shook.  ...  It  was  rather  difficult 
to  imagine  Grace  attracting  a  man  :  it  was  more  than 
difficult,  it  was  impossible,  to  believe  the  tales  that 
she  told  of  men  who  had  loved  her.  "  It  was  extra- 
ordinary the  devotion  that  man  poured  out,"  Grace 
would  say.  "  For  five  years,  imagine  !  I  had  nothing 
to  give  in  return,  of  course,  and  I  told  him  so."  She 
had  many  reports  of  how  engaged  men,  even  married 
men,  had  confided  in  her  that  they  were  unhappy, 
had  not  found  true  helpmates.  "  Isn't  it  extra- 
ordinary, Brasilia  ?  There  seems  to  be  something  in 
me  that  brings  men  to  confide  in  me — men  who  might 
almost  be  my  father."  Grace's  habit  of  relating  these 
stories  in  public,  often  on  cars  where  her  loud  voice 
must  attract  attention,  had  not  endeared  her  to 
Brasilia.  The  stories  were  full  of  contradictions : 
they  could  not  be  credited  even  by  Brasilia  with  her 
gentle  faith  and  pride  in  the  honour  of  her  sex.  Nor 
could  she  continue  to  believe  in  the  "  happy  life,"  the 
"  hosts  of  friends  "  and  the  "  first-class  education  " 
to  which  Miss  Morland  noisily  laid  claim.  Grace's 
accomplishments  fell  to  pieces  as  fast  as  the  hands  of 
a  closer  acquaintanceship  were  •£  retched  to  grasp 
them.  The  hosts  of  friends  dwindled  to  a  few  middle- 
aged  and  elderly  married  couples  and  single  women 
who  wore  "  sports  "  coats  indoors.  Patullo  seemed 
to  be  Miss  Morland's  only  male  friend  :  she  was 
hardly  tolerated  by  the  young  men  at  the  Eire. 
Brusilla  had  the  terrifying  insight  that  goes  with 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  163 

singleness  of  heart :  she  realised  that,  whereas  in  the 
case  of  her  mother  and  Aunt  Caroline,  circumstances 
had  imposed  a  layer  of  coarseness,  in  speech  and  habit, 
on  creatures  formerly  decent,  Miss  Morland  had  sought 
to  cover  with  an  imitation  of  refinement  a  coarseness 
that  was  hers  by  birth.  Drusilla's  soft  eyes  had 
watched  Miss  Morland,  eating  untidily  in  her  lodgings, 
hacking  at  a  lump  of  butter  half  swathed  in  paper. 
.  .  .  She  was  run  down  hi  mind  and  body  :  her 
manners  were  unpleasant ;  she  never  talked  about 
anything  but  her  own  affairs.  She  was  already  boring 
to  Drusilla,  who  knew  so  little  of  life.  How  could  she 
ever  have  held  the  interest  of  a  man,  who,  according 
to  the  women's  papers,  was  a  creature  so  easily  bored  ? 

She  may  have  been  different — once.  Vaguely, 
Drusilla  was  beginning  to  imagine  a  life  utterly  un- 
like her  own  ;  a  life  longer  but  resultant  in  a  weari- 
ness not  due  to  its  length.  A  life  all  broken  into 
pinchbeck  fragments,  full  of  concealments,  pretences, 
piteous  failing  attempts  ;  ending  now  in  that  jolting, 
jerking  vivacity,  that  dismal  feigned  fitness,  that  sick 
aimlessness  and  languid  doubt.  .  .  . 

"  Poor  soul !  "  Drusilla  thought  tenderly.  It  would 
be  so  easy  to  pity  Grace,  to  love  her — if  only  she 
weren't  so  spiteful  and  would  stop  telling  lies.  She 
made  claims  on  society  that  she  could  not  substantiate. 
Why  couldn't  she  be  content  to  claim  nothing  and 
beg  all  ?  As  a  beggar,  she  would  be  dear  and  touching 
and  a  constant  sop  to  one's  egotism.  .  .  . 

"  I  used  to  depend  so  much  on  Grace,"  Drusilla 
thought,  smiling,  wondering.  The  thought  came  to 
her  that  now  her  self-respect  had  awakened  :  she  had 
been  dreaming,  uneasily,  often  unhappily  :  she  had 
started  up  at  the  sound  of  bugles.  .  .  . 


162          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

autumn  blossoms,  but  were  of  summer,  of  the  time  of 
roses. 

Brasilia  thought  .  .  .  lately  she  had  begun  to  feel 
doubtful  if  Grace  had  had  a  man  in  her  past  life — a 
man  whose  voice  broke  at  parting,  whose  eyes  over- 
flowed, whose  hand  shook.  ...  It  was  rather  difficult 
to  imagine  Grace  attracting  a  man  :  it  was  more  than 
difficult,  it  was  impossible,  to  believe  the  tales  that 
she  told  of  men  who  had  loved  her.  "  It  was  extra- 
ordinary the  devotion  that  man  poured  out,"  Grace 
would  say.  "  For  five  years,  imagine  !  I  had  nothing 
to  give  in  return,  of  course,  and  I  told  him  so."  She 
had  many  reports  of  how  engaged  men,  even  married 
men,  had  confided  hi  her  that  they  were  unhappy, 
had  not  found  true  helpmates.  "  Isn't  it  extra- 
ordinary, Brasilia  ?  There  seems  to  be  something  in 
me  that  brings  men  to  confide  in  me — men  who  might 
almost  be  my  father."  Grace's  habit  of  relating  these 
stories  in  public,  often  on  cars  where  her  loud  voice 
must  attract  attention,  had  not  endeared  her  to 
Brasilia.  The  stories  were  full  of  contradictions : 
they  could  not  be  credited  even  by  Brasilia  with  her 
gentle  faith  and  pride  in  the  honour  of  her  sex.  Nor 
could  she  continue  to  believe  in  the  "  happy  life,"  the 
"  hosts  of  friends  "  and  the  "  first-class  education  " 
to  which  Miss  Morland  noisily  laid  claim.  Grace's 
accomplishments  fell  to  pieces  as  fast  as  the  hands  of 
a  closer  acquaintanceship  were  •£  retched  to  grasp 
them.  The  hosts  of  friends  dwindled  to  a  few  middle- 
aged  and  elderly  married  couples  and  single  women 
who  wore  "  sports  "  coats  indoors.  Patullo  seemed 
to  be  Miss  Morland' s  only  male  friend :  she  was 
hardly  tolerated  by  the  young  men  at  the  Eire. 
Brasilia  had  the  terrifying  insight  that  goes  with 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  163 

singleness  of  heart :  she  realised  that,  whereas  in  the 
case  of  her  mother  and  Aunt  Caroline,  circumstances 
had  imposed  a  layer  of  coarseness,  in  speech  and  habit, 
on  creatures  formerly  decent,  Miss  Morland  had  sought 
to  cover  with  an  imitation  of  refinement  a  coarseness 
that  was  hers  by  birth.  Drusilla's  soft  eyes  had 
watched  Miss  Morland,  eating  untidily  in  her  lodgings, 
hacking  at  a  lump  of  butter  half  swathed  in  paper. 
.  .  .  She  was  run  down  in  mind  and  body  :  her 
manners  were  unpleasant ;  she  never  talked  about 
anything  but  her  own  affairs.  She  was  already  boring 
to  Drusilla,  who  knew  so  little  of  life.  How  could  she 
ever  have  held  the  interest  of  a  man,  who,  according 
to  the  women's  papers,  was  a  creature  so  easily  bored  ? 

She  may  have  been  different — once.  Vaguely, 
Drusilla  was  beginning  to  imagine  a  life  utterly  un- 
like her  own  ;  a  life  longer  but  resultant  in  a  weari- 
ness not  due  to  its  length.  A  life  all  broken  into 
pinchbeck  fragments,  full  of  concealments,  pretences, 
piteous  failing  attempts  ;  ending  now  in  that  jolting, 
jerking  vivacity,  that  dismal  feigned  fitness,  that  sick 
aimlessness  and  languid  doubt.  .  .  . 

"  Poor  soul !  "  Drusilla  thought  tenderly.  It  would 
be  so  easy  to  pity  Grace,  to  love  her — if  only  she 
weren't  so  spiteful  and  would  stop  telling  lies.  She 
made  claims  on  society  that  she  could  not  substantiate. 
Why  couldn't  she  be  content  to  claim  nothing  and 
beg  all  ?  As  a  beggar,  she  would  be  dear  and  touching 
and  a  constant  sop  to  one's  egotism.  .  .  . 

"  I  used  to  depend  so  much  on  Grace,"  Drusilla 
thought,  smiling,  wondering.  The  thought  came  to 
her  that  now  her  self-respect  had  awakened  :  she  had 
been  dreaming,  uneasily,  often  unhappily  :  she  had 
started  up  at  the  sound  of  bugles.  .  .  . 


166          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

her  !  No  terrors  could  come  to  her  in  such  a  world, 
no  sordid  monsters  of  sorrow  and  hate.  Michael's 
sword  would  fell  them  all.  .  .  .  Besides  there  were 
so  many  beautiful  women  in  that  world  that  no  one 
would  hate  her  for  being  beautiful. 

At  the  whimsical  thought  she  smiled,  the  grave  red 
mouth  curving  into  glee.  Michael's  smile  came  to 
meet  hers  and  gambolled  with  it  into  a  laughter  which 
neither  of  them  sought  to  explain.  The  corner  of  the 
park  was  as  a  garden  of  enchantment  in  which  phan- 
tasies were  known  as  intense  realities  and  the  material 
things  of  physical  life  showed  only  as  pallid  distant 
ghosts  and  grotesques. 

There  was  a  sound  of  footsteps — big,  slouching, 
slack,  like  the  steps  of  a  man  who  was  tired  or  drunk. 
Drusilla  saw  Miss  Morland  turning  the  corner  from 
the  Chrysanthemum  Walk. 

Michael  had  just  been  speaking  of  beautiful  words 
and  conjunctions  of  words — of  Homer's  *'  hollow  black 
ships,"  of  Rossetti's  "  dust  and  flame,"  of  Robert 
Buchanan's  "  divine  dark  day  of  emerald  calm,"  of 
Coleridge's  "  restless  gossamers,"  of  Spenser's  "  fair 
lawnds  "  and  Keats's  "  tawny  oats."  It  came  to 
Drusilla,  with  a  bitter  cold  sense  of  being  only  a 
stranger  in  his  country,  that  the  word  that  flashed 
through  her  brain  at  the  sight  of  Grace  Morland  was 
the  miserable  commercial  one  "  shop-tossed."  Yet 
it  was  powerfully  descriptive,  Drusilla  thought : 
Grace's  life,  her  soul,  as  well  as  her  person,  gave  one 
an  impression  of  having  been  "  shop-tossed."  She 
had  lain  about  in  a  litter  of  dust  and  oddments,  and 
had  become  worn  without  ever  having  been  of  use. 

As  the  dusty,  dishevelled  figure  came  near  it  seemed 
like  a  fustian  monster  threading  the  paths  of  the 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  167 

enchanted  garden  where  the  prince  and  princess  sat 
in  happiness.  They  both  rose  at  its  approach.  To 
Drusilla  it  came  as  a  reminder  of  the  passing  of  time 
in  the  old  world  of  pretences  that  she  had  left.  To 
Michael  the  figure  brought  a  great  start  of  shame 
and  remorse.  He  had  forgotten  Patullo.  He  was 
altogether  unworthy  of  Drusilla — his  selfish,  shallow 
irresponsibility  made  him  a  danger  to  this  unfolding 
rose  with  its  delicate  heart  of  white  and  gold.  How 
could  he  hope  to  handle  it  with  enough  of  reverence 
and  of  tenderness  ? 

"We— ell?  Is  this  the  Chrysanthemum  Walk, 
kiddie  ?  "  Miss  Morland  asked  gaily. 

"  No,"  Drusilla  replied.  "  I  waited  a  long  time — 
then  I  sat  down  here.  Mr.  Quentin  had  been  up  at 
our  house  with  a  book." 

"  I  see — with  a  book,"  Miss  Morland  said  quizzi- 
cally. She  glanced  curiously  from  one  to  the  other. 
Drusilla  was  watching  her  in  wonder  :  the  fatigue 
and  look  of  suffering  that  she  had  noted  when  they 
were  at  Patullo' s  door  had  certainly  deepened  in 
Miss  Morland's  face.  She  looked  tragic  now,  almost 
grand,  in  her  pallor,  with  her  deep  lines  and  gazing 
eyes  :  so  that  Drusilla  wondered  how  she  could  ever 
have  said  "  Grace  "  to  a  woman  so  old  and  of  such 
sore  experiences.  Yet  Miss  Morland's  curiosity  was 
plainly  quite  genuine  :  it  was  one  of  her  weaknesses 
most  irritating  to  Drusilla — a  flunkey  appetite  for 
material  facts  and  gossip  about  all  persons,  within  or 
without  the  circle  of  her  acquaintance. 

"  Isn't  it  awful  about  Mr.  Patullo,  Mick  ?  "  Miss 
Morland  said  eagerly  to  Michael,  who  had  been  about 
to  excuse  himself.  "  Isn't  it  extraordinary  how  he 
adored  that  child  ?  His  wife— oh " 


168          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

She  rambled  on,  speaking  with  an  utter  openness, 
deviating  every  now  and  then  into  other  subjects, 
telling  little  spiteful  stories  of  Patullo's  wife,  of  the 
shifts  and  miseries  of  his  life  with  her.  Patullo  had 
told  her  that  Michael  knew  everything :  but  it  is 
doubtful  if  she  would  have  restrained  herself  in  his 
hearing  in  any  case :  she  neither  asked,  nor  seemed 
to  care,  whether  Drusilla  was  informed  or  not,  but 
talked  incoherently,  incessantly,  irrelevantly,  as  if 
the  spring  of  her  will  were  broken. 

"  We-ell,  here's  my  car,"  she  said  at  the  gate  of  the 
park.  "  Don't  be  late  for  tea,  or  the  old  lady'll  be 

mad.     No,  no,  dear,  I've  no  idea  of  staying "  as 

Drusilla  made  a  false  faltering  offer. 

As  the  car  hummed  away  Drusilla  and  Michael 
looked  at  each  other ;  puzzled,  compassionate, 
ashamed  that  they  were  so  happy,  that  they  cared  so 
little  about  poor  old  Patullo  and  Miss  Morland  that 
they  could  hardly  bring  themselves  to  think  or  speak 
of  them.  Michael,  especially,  found  this  thing  strange 
for  he  believed  that  Love  opened  wide  the  doors  of 
the  human  heart  for  the  admission  of  God  and  all 
one's  fellow  human  beings.  He  could  only  conclude 
sadly  that  his  love  was  as  yet  a  feeble  thing — all 
unworthy  of  this  fair  princess. 

Oh,  it  would  grow  !  He  would  water  it  with  prayer- 
ful tears  :  he  would  make  all  his  life  a  cry  for  puri- 
fication. He  would  wait  and  prove  himself.  All  his 
fellows  would  be  dear  to  him  for  her  sake  :  he  would 
feed  the  hungry  and  clothe  the  naked  and  watch  by 
the  dead  for  her  sake.  He  would  comfort  the  com- 
fortless— not  only  Irishmen  but  all  men  in  all  coun- 
tries. As  he  had  dreamed  of  Ireland,  glorified,  as  the 
centre  of  a  world  of  faith,  so  he  now  saw  his  love-lit 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  169 

life  like  a  bright  evangelising  island  in  the  midst  of  a 
dark  world  of  calumny  and  envy  and  grief. 

It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  fear  that  she  might  not 
understand  his  tribute  of  waiting.  She  was  young  : 
love  was  surely  only  stirring  in  her  heart.  For  her, 
too,  there  must  be  the  misty,  vaguely  glorious  days 
of  expectancy.  That  was  the  meaning  of  the  note  in 
her  voice,  the  smile  that  had  suddenly  shone  from  her 
eyes.  She  had  faith — she  would  mistake  no  footstep 
for  Love's.  Let  her  have  her  enchanted  time  of  wait- 
ing and  wondering  in  the  garden,  mazy,  mysterious 
in  the  morning  light,  full  of  hinted  glories.  God 
Himself,  reverent,  stood  by  and  left  to  the  rose  its 
own  time  of  unfolding. 

"  Good-bye,"  Drusilla  said  blissfully  at  Patullo's 
door. 

"  Good-bye,"  Michael  said  blissfully. 

Michael  went  into  Patullo's  and  found  the  poor  man 
drinking  tea  and  brandy.  Drusilla  entered  the 
Trathbyes'  flat :  the  little  hall  showed  a  darkness  of 
shut  doors,  and  she  hurried  to  the  kitchen. 

"  Late,  of  course,"  Aunt  Caroline  said. 

"It's  a  queer  thing  how  you  can  never  be  hi  to  a 
meal  in  time,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  in  her  hyperbolic 
manner  of  speaking. 

"  Grace  Morland  came — we  were  in  the  park — in 
the  Chrysanthemum  Walk,"  Drusilla  said.  She  hated 
the  deceptiveness  of  this — tried  to  explain — found 
that  she  could  not.  The  Trathbyes  had  not  the  habit 
of  listening.  Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Aunt  Caroline 
generally  walked  away  or  began  to  talk  about  some- 
thing else  ;  and  afterwards  they  would  complain  that 
they  were  told  nothing,  that  Drusilla  was  growing 
amazingly  secretive. 


170          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  I  met  Michael  Quentin  too,"  Drusilla  said. 

"  By  appointment  ?  "  Mrs.  Trathbye  asked. 

Essie  laughed,  trying  to  make  a  joke  of  it,  ashamed 
of  her  mother's  bitter  agitated  tone. 

"  He  was  here,  of  course,"  she  said.  "  Aunt  Carlie 
told  him  you  were  in  the  park  and  he  went  on.  .  .  . 
I  suppose  he's  well  off,  Dillie  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  Drusilla  said,  laughing.  She  took 
off  her  hat  and  coat  and  sat  down.  As  she  laid  down 
the  volume  of  Spenser  she  remembered  with  a  sort 
of  mental  gasp  that  she  had  left  the  volume  of  H.  G. 
Wells  in  the  park.  Her  written  article  seemed  to  her 
now  a  foolish,  futile  thing,  and  it  was  easy  to  acquiesce 
in  its  loss,  though  she  flushed  at  the  idea  of  it  being 
found  and  read. 

"  Did  you  know  that  Miss  Morland  had  been  in 
Mr.  Patullo's  house  all  the  afternnon  ?  "  Mrs.  Trathbye 
asked,  looking  darkly  at  her  daughter. 

"  Mr.  Patullo's  in  trouble — he  asked  her  to  come — 
they're  very  old  friends — he  used  to  coach  her," 
Drusilla  jerked  out,  with  a  shameful  sense  of  her 
mother's  deterioration.  "  A  little  while  ago  she 
would  never  have  said  such  a  thing !  "  Drusilla  said 
to  herself ;  and  saw  the  thought  reflected  in  Essie's 
face. 

"  Ah,  a  likely  story  !  "  Mrs.  Trathbye  said.  "  It's 
a  long  time  since  she  was  coached  in  anything."  She 
began  to  laugh  in  her  roguish  irresistible  manner,  and 
the  girls  laughed  too. 

"  He's  never  given  me  my  two  shillings  back,"  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said  with  intense  amusement. 

"  Agh,  he's  a  drunken  old  wretch,"  Aunt  Caroline 
said.  "  He  is.  He's  always  drunk." 

"  It's  rather  reckless  to  be  bringing  charges  like 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  171 

that  against  people,"  Essie  complained  to  Mrs. 
Trathbye.  "  She'd  say  it  anywhere.  She  says  things 
without  a  bit  of  sense." 

"I've  seen  him  drunk — I  have  so,"  Aunt  Caroline 
protested  ;  but  the  rebuke  was  received  with  some 
deference  as  it  came  from  the  moderate  and  business- 
like Essie.  Mrs.  Trathbye  graduated  her  descent  into 
silence  by  saying  :  "  Ah,  children,  what  can  you  know 
about  men — or  women  ?  " 

"  Will  you  pass  the  bread,  Aunt  Carlie  ?  "  Drusilla 
asked  coldly. 

Aunt  Caroline,  rather  subdued,  passed  it. 

"  I  forgot  to  tell  you  Mr.  Cowie  called  too  this 
afternoon,"  she  said. 

Oh  ..."  Drusilla' s  face  was  gleeful. 

:'  With  a  book,"  Aunt  Caroline  explained. 

II 

At  the  Eire  Club  there  were  remarks  passed  on  the 
intimacy  between  Mr.  Quentin  and  Mr.  Patullo.  It 
was  obvious  to  the  lean  woman  in  the  sables  that  old 
Patullo  had  succeeded  in  getting  on  to  the  soft  side 
of  Michael  Quentin.  (The  lean  woman  added  some- 
thing to  her  reputation  as  a  wit  by  expressing  a  fear 
that  all  the  sides  that  Michael  had  were  soft  ones.) 
Patullo  was  being  "  spoken  about "  in  the  club : 
there  were  rumours  that  he  had  borrowed  money  from 
various  members  ;  that  he  had,  on  several  occasions, 
come  to  the  meetings  when  it  would  have  been  more 
prudent  to  have  remained  at  home.  The  story  of  the 
child  had  not  penetrated  to  the  Eire  Club  :  it  was  not 
known  even  at  the  Mission  :  for  Mrs.  Quinn  was  a 
woman  of  absolute  loyalty  and  delicacy,  and  the 


172          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

secret  had  remained  a  secret,  perhaps  because  there 
had  been  no  strenuous  efforts  to  keep  it  so.  Yet  the 
lean  woman  and  her  stout  companion — whose  per- 
sonalities were  magnetic  to  gossip — had  "  heard 
somewhere  "  that  Patullo  was  married  and  living  apart 
from  his  wife.  It  was  only  necessary  to  look  at  Patullo 
to  see  who  was  in  the  wrong  :  these  two  women  had 
an  antagonism  to  men  which  they  mistook  for  sex 
loyalty.  Patullo,  from  being  simply  jeerable,  began 
to  be  monstrous  in  their  sight :  and  the  favouritism 
shown  to  him  by  Michael  was  a  further  proof  of  the 
young  man's  eccentricity  and  his  purse-proud  in- 
difference to  the  feelings  of  the  respectable  members 
of  the  club.  He  took  Patullo  about  in  his  motor  ! 

The  lean  woman,  considering  Miss  Morland,  hoped 
that  Mrs.  Patullo — poor  thing  ! — had  not  even  worse 
to  bear.  Even  a  society  which  is  an  organic  whole 
contains  the  germs  of  dissolution  ;  and  the  Eire  Club 
had  never  been  an  organism.  Its  cleavage  into 
parties  became  a  distinct  and  acknowledged  thing. 
Alexander  Cowie,  without  effort,  almost  unconsciously, 
had  rallied  round  him  the  young  men  and  nearly  all 
the  middle-aged  women.  Besides  Drusilla,  there  were 
only  two  girls  in  the  club — a  pair  of  Irish  sisters  of 
humble  birth,  shop-girls,  pretty,  prim,  and  soft-eyed, 
who  wrote  religious  verses  and  were  too  unpreten- 
tious to  refuse  to  admire  Drusilla.  They  called  her 
"  awfully  sweet  "  and  "lovely";  regretting  that  she 
"  did  not  make  the  most  of  herself "  but  wore  her 
hair  in  such  a  dreadful  tousle.  Because  she  was 
quiet  and  choice  in  her  speech,  they  believed  that 
she  was  well-educated  and  deferred  to  her  on  all 
matters  which  had  no  connection  with  dress.  They 
saw  that  she  belonged  to  Michael  Quentin's  party 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  178 

and  they  stood  by  Michael  and  Racie  and  old  Patullo. 
But  they  found  it  rather  difficult  to  treat  Miss  Morland 
as  a  comrade  :  her  violent  partisanship  was  felt  to 
be  a  disgrace. 

"  I  wouldn't  worry  about  that  woman  parading  an 
enthusiasm  for  you,"  Racie  said  to  Michael  one  night 
in  October,  as  they  left  the  club.  "  I  mean  her 
enthusiasm  for  you  as  Chairman.  Of  course  it  is 
making  you  more  unpopular  every  meeting ;  but 
you're  bound  to  be  unpopular  anyway." 

"  Thanks,"  Michael  said  with  an  annoyed  laugh. 

"It's  not  an  insult  exactly,"  Racie  said,  with  his 
sideways  glance.  "  She's  a  silly  woman.  She  has 
talked  about  the  extraordinary  Platonic  friendship 
between  her  and  old  Patullo  till  she's  driven  people 
into  thinking  it  can't  be  Platonic.  If  you  repeat  a 
thing  often  enough  you're  sure  to  make  some  one 
suspect  it's  not  true." 

"  I  never  heard  such  stuff,"  Michael  panted  out. 
"  Patullo's  an  old  man." 

"  Patullo  drinks,"  Racie  said.  "  I'd  believe  him 
if  he  said  he  was  not  fifty  yet." 

"  Well— fifty  1  "  Michael  uttered.  "What's  the 
good  of  staying  alive  as  long  as  that  if  it  doesn't 
insure  you  against  scandal  ?  " 

"  Miss  Morland's  single  gift  is  the  making  of 
scandal,"  Racie  said.  "  Haven't  you  noticed  she's 
that  sort  of  woman  ?  I'm  saying  nothing  against 
her " 

"Oh  no;  of  course  not,"  Michael  jeered.  .  .  .  "It's 
shameful  to  be  applying  words  like  that  to  the  poor 
lady." 

"  Words  ?  "    Racie  came  near  saying  :  ".  Wurruds  ?" 

"  Well,  you  called  her  a  woman,"  Michael  said. 


174          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

"  You  know  '  woman  '  is  a  term  of  reproach.    People 
are  called  women  only  in  low  newspaper  paragraphs." 

"  '  Poor  lady  '  is  just  as  bad,"  Racie  retorted.  "  It 
has  a  clinical  suggestion.  .  .  .  All  I  mean  is  that  Miss 
Morland  has  a  personality.  ...  If  she  were  a  pretty 
— lady — she  would  break  up  families ;  she  might  do 
it  if  she  were  brilliant  without  being  pretty.  As  she's 
neither,  she  only  half  does  everything  :  she  has  all 
the  disadvantages  of  her  sex  without  any  of  its 
privileges.  She's  the  kind  of  woman  men  dislike 
and  other  women  are  ready  to  love.  But  she  sacrifices 
women's  friendship  to  clutch  at  a  thing  that  isn't  for 
her — men's  admiration,  that's  to  say.  .  .  .  She's  a 
silly  .  .  .  lady." 

Michael,  irritably  aware  of  some  truth  in  Racie's 
words,  stopped  to  watch  a  street  artist,  who  by  the 
glow  of  a  lamp  was  plastering  the  kerb  with  colours. 
The  man  had  made  a  copy  of  an  Asti  head,  red-haired 
and  white-throated ;  and  crude  as  the  thing  was 
its  hint  of  florescent  beauty  recalled  Drusilla.  .  .  . 
As  Michael  dropped  money  into  the  flaccid,  suppliant 
cap,  he  thought  of  the  dragging  footsteps  of  the  pave- 
ment woman  who  had  passed  under  his  windows  that 
night  in  summer  ;  of  the  heavy  and  the  light  footsteps 
that  had  passed  away  side  by  side.  A  woman  bar- 
gaining for  the  things  she  needed  most — food  and 
shelter  and  clothes ;  the  horrible  profane  craving  to 
go  on  living  after  she  had  bartered  her  soul !  ...  It 
was  a  solemn  thought  that  Drusilla  also  was  a  woman  : 
it  was  not  possible  to  understand  how,  with  needs  so 
different,  two  creatures  came  to  be  called  of  the  same 
species. 

"  The  trouble  with  you,"  Racie's  voice  came,  "  is 
that  you  aren't  a  bit  interested  in  your  kind.  Not 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  175 

really.  You  are  bored  by  me  talking  about  Miss 
Morland." 

"  Lord  knows  I  am  !  "  Michael  interjected. 

"  Who's  obvious  now  ?  "  Racie  said.  "  The  woman 
doesn't  interest  you  qua  woman."  Michael  groaned. 
"  Yes,  qua's  Mercurial,"  Racie  said.  "  I  had  to  get 
your  attention.  Miss  Morland  has  personality.  She's 
all  made  up  of  inferior  stuff  but  she  bulks  largely." 

"  How  dare  you  say  she's  all  of  inferior  stuff  ?  " 
Michael  said.  "  Uh " 

He  and  Racie  lifted  their  hats.  In  the  lighted  and 
shadowed  street  Miss  Morland  and  Patullo,  walking 
quickly,  passed  them. 

"  How  about  Miss  Trathbye  ? "  Racie  asked, 
elaborately  off-hand. 

"  Oh,  Cowie's  seeing  her  home,"  Michael  said. 
"  I  suppose  he'd  asked  her  and  she  couldn't  get 
out  of  it." 

Racie  looked  hard  at  his  friend.  Michael  spoke 
confidently.  His  face  was  bafflingly  happy  and 
serene.  ...  It  was  too  obvious  to  Racie  that  Cowie 
would  have  no  chance  with  the  Trathbyes.  A  widow 
knew  better  than  to  prefer  a  struggling  young  doctor 
of  low  birth  to  Michael  Quentin  with  his  five  thousand 
a  year.  Oh,  she  would  swallow  the  public-houses  ! 

"  I  wish  I  could  do  something  for  Patullo,"  Michael 
said  fervently.  "  He  really  cares  for  poetry  and  art 
and  everything  worth  bothering  about.  I'm  con- 
vinced that  he  could  easily  be  got  to  keep  straight 
if  only  one  could  hit  on  a  plan.  .  .  ." 

"  Oh,  by  Jupiter,  if  it's  a  plan  that's  wanted  !  .  .  ." 
Racie  said.  He  added,  with  a  sudden  emotion  waving 
across  his  face  :  "  How  many  plans  have  you  made 
for  people,  Mick  ?  " 


176          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

Alexander  Cowie  often — indeed  generally — did  see 
Drusilla  home  from  the  meetings  of  the  Eire  Club. 
His  habit  was  to  overtake  her  quietly  as  she  left  the 
hall  and  either  to  murmur  his  request  or  speechlessly 
to  act  as  if  it  were  granted.  The  club  rooms  were  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Buchanan  Street,  hi  Burke 
Place,  exclusive  and  poorly  lighted ;  and,  though 
Cowie's  boots  creaked  loudly  amid  the  silent  solid 
buildings,  not  even  the  lean  woman  had  noticed  that 
he  habitually  went  home  with  Miss  Trathbye.  It  was 
partly  owing  to  Cowie's  promptitude  and  discretion  ; 
but  more  to  a  certain  weightiness  in  his  character. 
In  Cowie's  conception  of  his  relationship  with  his 
fellows  he  had  not  left  room  for  the  ideas  that  he  could 
be  absurd  or  censurable.  He  would  have  said  himself 
that  he  had  "  no  use  for  "  people  whose  standards 
were  different  from  his  own ;  and  his  absolute  con- 
fidence in  his  conformity  to  those  standards  must  be 
reflected  as  respect  in  the  hearts  of  his  companions. 

He  knew  that  Drusilla  chaffed  him  :  but  a  young 
woman's  chaff  of  a  young  man  did  not  mean  that  he 
struck  her  as  ridiculous.  Cowie,  smiling,  knew  that 
it  meant  something  different.  .  .  . 

Rising  to  speak  at  the  Eire  Club,  Cowie  always 
looked,  with  unswerving  bright  eyes,  at  the  Chairman. 
He  found  Michael  Quentin  amusing ;  and  the  fact 
that  Michael  had  money  for  which  he  did  not  work 
was  offensive  to  all  the  traditions  of  Cowie's  set.  He, 
and  the  excellent  young  men  who  were  his  com- 
panions, were  contemptuous  of  rich  men  who  had 
made  no  efforts  ;  they  had  a  genuine  scorn  for  any- 
thing that  was  "  unbusinesslike  "  or  "  unwholesome  " 
— anything  that  suggested  "  side."  "  La-di-da  !  " 
they  said  of  Michael's  motor,  his  shirt-front,  and  his 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  177 

house  at  Fauldstane.  Why  could  not  Michael  stay 
in  his  proper  place  and  leave  them  alone  ?  They  had 
the  snobbery  of  men  of  economical  and  hard-working 
habits  for  an  unclassed  being  who  had  no  right  to  a 
share  in  the  scurrying  City  life.  Cowie,  at  least,  had 
no  stronger  feeling  than  this  half-conscious  one  against 
Michael  Quentin  :  he  was  amused  by  the  poor  fellow's 
nervousness  and  felt  a  kind  of  admiration  for  Michael's 
flow  of  words  the  meaning  of  which  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  pursue.  Cowie  took  scarcely  more  heed  of 
him  than  he  did  of  a  cloud  in  the  sky,  or  of  the 
Humanitarian  Movement  in  Britain,  or  of  Bahaism  in 
Persia  :  Michael  Quentin  was  like  these,  an  uncom- 
prehended  thing,  moving  in  another  sphere,  a  fantastic 
and  unsubstantial  thing  which  had  its  own  out- 
blazings  of  light  and  its  own  mysterious  tempests.  .  .  . 

As  for  thinking  of  Michael  as  a  rival — how  could 
Alexander  Cowie  do  that  ?  Cowie  was — almost — sure 
that  Drusilla  cared  for  him  :  he  regarded  her  as  a 
member  of  his  own  class,  and  Michael  as  a  despicable 
swell  who  would  marry  a  "  Society  woman."  Cowie 
knew  that  Society  women  were  not  nice  people  :  a 
fellow  who  had  been  intimate  with  them  could  never 
settle  down  with  a  quiet  girl  like  Drusilla.  Society 
women  always  had  money,  and  moneyed  men  always 
married  money. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Michael  Quentin  had  even  less 
thought  of  Cowie  as  a  rival.  To  Michael  it  seemed 
that  every  one  who  met  Drusilla  must  be  immediately 
aware  of  her  difference  from  all  the  other  members  of 
the  Eire  Club,  and  indeed  from  all  other  people  on 
earth.  Michael  was  not  absolutely  deluded  in  this 
faith  :  for  Drusilla,  by  reason  of  her  retired  life,  her 
exquisite  sensuousness,  and  her  beauty,  showed 

M 


178          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

uniquely  among  her  associates.  Some  of  them  were 
repelled  by  this  rareness  in  her,  a  few — like  the  two 
pretty  shop-girls — were  charmed  by  it :  most  were 
rendered  dimly  uneasy  and  resentful.  Alexander 
Cowie  was  probably  the  only  person  in  the  Eire  Club 
who  felt  at  home  with  Drusilla.  For  a  variety  of 
reasons,  Cowie  was  incapable  of  knowing  that  she  was 
essentially  different  from  other  girls  of  his  acquaint- 
ance. 

Where  Drusilla  was  concerned,  Michael  left  Cowie 
out  of  account ;  as  completely  as  the  inhabitant  of  a 
cloudland  castle  might  ignore  the  cashier  of  the  bank 
in  a  street  below.  The  burning,  stinging  pains  that 
Cowie  could  make  Michael  feel  were  not  the  stirrings 
of  an  unacknowledged  jealousy  :  they  were  simply  the 
throes  of  an  unsuccessful,  sensitive  man,  knowing 
himself  be-mocked  and  fancying  far  more  cruelty 
than  lived  in  the  scoffer.  Michael  had  felt  from  their 
first  night  of  meeting  that  Cowie  noticed  his  flushings 
and  palings,  his  agitations,  his  stammer  :  he  felt  that 
Cowie  knew  that  he  had  no  place  of  his  own  in  the 
social  structure.  He  was  envious  of  Cowie's  goings 
to  and  fro,  his  popularity  and  cheerfulness,  his  nor- 
mality, his  absolute  contentment  with  himself  and 
his  own  people,  his  own  health  and  good  looks,  his 
moderate  success  in  business,  his  amusements,  his 
accent.  It  was  idle  to  try  to  imagine  Cowie  trans- 
ported into  a  different  society  and,  flushed  and  uneasy, 
acknowledging  that  he  was  not  normal ;  for  he  made 
a  solid  whole  with  his  surroundings.  He  was  so  truly 
a  part  of  them  that  it  was  not  possible  to  believe  that 
they  had  been  more  creative  of  him  than  he  of  them. 
The  absence  of  social  ambition  in  him,  his  freedom 
from  shames  for  himself  or  his  friends,  gave  him 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  179 

immunity  from  suffering.  Once  or  twice  Michael  had 
aimed  a  quivering  sarcasm  at  him  :  but  Cowie  had 
not  understood. 

It  was  this  very  contentment  of  Cowie's  that  had 
made  it  impossible  for  Michael  to  see  that  he  loved 
Drusilla.  A  creature,  however  uncouth,  who  was 
shaken  by  noble  angers  and  divine  doubts,  might  have 
looked  up  to  this  princess  and — despairingly — re- 
joicingly— loved  her.  A  Caliban — not  a  counter- 
jumper  !  Cowie  with  his  tan  boots  and  trim  trousers, 
his  rosy  cheeks  and  cushiony  little  dark  moustache 
and  pretty  eyes,  his  jests  and  quotations  from  popular 
weeklies — what  had  he  to  do  with  Love's  frenzies 
and  raptures,  Love's  dishevelments  and  exhaustions  ? 
...  It  was  utterly  clear  that  Cowie  would  not  under 
any  circumstances  have  understood  Drusilla.  If  the 
idea  of  him  loving  her  had  been  presented  to  Michael 
he  would  have  found  it  not  laughable  only  because  it 
was  too  profane  for  mirth.  When  he  sat  at  the  green 
table  at  the  Eire  Club  and  felt  his  knees  tremble  when 
Cowie  rose,  it  was  not  because  he  saw  in  him  Drusilla's 
lover  :  the  struggle  between  them  was  as  yet  just  the 
same  as  on  the  night  of  their  first  meeting — the  eternal 
struggle  between  the  solemnity  of  the  dreamer  and  the 
practical  man's  frivolity.  It  was  with  no  fear,  with 
no  anger,  and  with  hardly  any  disappointment  that 
Michael  watched  Drusilla  go  away  with  Cowie  that 
night  in  October. 

In  the  grey-blackness  of  Burke  Place,  splashed  with 
the  golden  green  lights  of  incandescent  lamps,  Drusilla 
walked  along  beside  Cowie  ;  thinking  of  him  a  little 
because  she  was  in  his  presence.  She  had  noticed 
that  girls  usually  did  not  like  him  and,  idly,  sought 
the  reason  :  but  her  interest  in  him  was  too  superficial 


180          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

and  he  faded  out  of  her  thoughts.  Cowie  was  clearly 
very  popular  with  his  fellow-men ;  and  middle-aged 
and  elderly  women  were  almost  demonstrative  in  their 
affection  for  him.  He  had  told  Drusilla  that  he  was 
twenty-seven  and  had  never  "  gone  with  "  any  girl ; 
and,  after  she  had  got  over  her  amusement  at  the 
vulgar  phrase,  she  had  found,  with  a  feeling  of  surprise, 
that  the  fact  was  just  as  she  would  have  guessed.  In 
her  laziness  and  her  coldness  to  Cowie,  she  explained 
it  by  thinking  that,  in  spite  of  his  self -rejoicing,  he 
was  probably  shy  of  young  women.  She  understood 
why  he  had  told  her  and  smiled  every  time  that  she 
recalled  it.  She  felt  sure  of  her  power  over  him  :  she 
had  no  suspicion  that  his  unpopularity  among  girls 
was  a  sign  of  his  indomitable  character  :  yet,  dimly, 
she  was  every  now  and  then  aware  of  the  masculine 
force  latent  in  him.  It  was  like  a  gigantic  creature 
too  thick-hided  to  be  tickled  into  annoyance  or 
pleasure  by  the  light  fingers  of  her  mockery. 

This  night,  as  they  left  the  Eire,  Drusilla  was  gay. 
The  paper  had  been  an  exquisite  one,  about  dreams 
and  omens,  delivered  by  a  Dublin  friend  of  Racie's. 
What  was  called  a  discussion  had  followed,  and, 
mysteriously,  the  members  of  the  Eire  Club  had  leapt 
into  a  dispute  about  cremation.  It  had  filled  Drusilla 
with  happiness  to  find  Michael's  eyes,  brimming  with 
laughter,  seeking  hers :  she  had  been  aware  of  a 
different  quality  in  his  merriment :  he  was  no  longer 
bitter  in  his  disappointment,  he  no  longer  took  the 
Eire  Club  seriously.  Something  else  filled  his  heart. 

"  I  didn't  think  much  of  yon,  did  you,  Miss  Trath- 
bye  ?  "  Cowie  was  saying  as  they  walked.  "  Dreams 
are  made  up  of  cheese  and  underdone  potatoes " 

"  And  lobster,"  Drusilla  scoffed. 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  181 

Cowie  laughed,  thinking  she  offered  it  as  her  con- 
tribution of  wit.  "  You  don't  dream,  do  you  ?  "  he 
asked,  with  a  little  anxiety. 

"  Often,"  Drusilla  said.  "  I  never  dreamed  of 
cheese  nor  lobster,  but  I  sometimes  do  dream  of  things 
to  eat." 

"  That's  the  result  of  going  to  bed  on  an  empty 
stomach,"  Cowie  said  gravely.  "  Let  me  advise  you 
not  to  do  that.  I  believe  in  a  light  supper,  but  that's 
a  very  different  thing  from  one  that  isn't  nourishing." 

Drusilla  had  flushed,  thinking  of  the  insufficient 
suppers  at  home,  especially  when  "  poor  John  "  had 
made  one  of  his  locust-like  descents  upon  them. 

"  What  do  you  eat  at  night,  may  I  ask  ?  "  Cowie 
said. 

"  Good  gracious  !  I  don't  want  you  to  be  sending 
me  a  bill  for  consultations,"  Drusilla  said.  "  I  eat 
bread  .  .  .  biscuits  .  .  .  apples  and  things  .  .  ." 

"  Milk  ?  "  Cowie  asked. 

"  Sometimes,"  Drusilla  said.  The  Trathbyes  used 
only  threepenny-worth  of  milk  a  day. 

"  Brown  bread  ?  You  look  well.  .  .  .  You  have 
always  good  health,  Miss  Trathbye  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  Drusilla  said,  bubbling  with  laughter. 
They  reached  the  car  station  and,  on  the  journey,  she 
must  listen  to  a  long  grave  lecture  from  Cowie  about 
diet,  maintaining  the  temperature  of  the  body,  even 
about  clothing.  Now  and  then  a  little  "  ki-iigh  !  " 
of  laughter  escaped  Drusilla,  but  Cowie,  intent,  neither 
paused  nor  took  offence.  She  found,  afterwards, 
that  he  had  asked  her  a  great  many  personal  questions 
and  that  she  had  answered  them  all. 

"  Here  we  are,"  Cowie  said.  They  were  a  little  late 
at  rising  and,  as  they  were  descending  the  stair,  the 


182          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

car  started  again.  Drusilla  swayed  forwards  and 
Cowie  quickly  clasped  his  arm  about  her  and  lifted 
her  on  to  the  platform.  He  jumped  to  the  road,  still 
holding  her,  surprised  and  thrilled  by  the  strength  of 
his  arm. 


Ill 

As  they  went  up  the  Trathbyes'  street,  Cowie 
discussed  the  suggestion  of  complaining  of  the  guard, 
whose  number  he  had  noticed. 

"  Don't  be  ridiculous ! "  Drusilla  said,  amused. 
She  was  all  the  more  merry  because  she  felt  inclined  to 
yield  to  the  general  tendency  to  take  Cowie  seriously. 
She  found  herself  glancing  at  his  sleeve  and  visualising 
the  strong  white  arm  within. 

Cowie  went  on  prosing  till  he  had  said  all  that  he 
wanted  to  say  ;  then  he  stopped,  and  laughed. 

"  Miss  Trathbye,  do  you  know  you're  the  only 
woman  I  know  who  takes  her  fun  out  of  me  ?  " 

"  Your  mother  and  sisters  .  .  .  ?  "  Drusilla  sug- 
gested. He  had  told  her  about  them — Bessie,  the 
eldest,  who  sang  a  great  deal  at  concerts,  and  "  wee 
Aggie  "  whom  Drusilla  pictured  as  a  pretty  child. 

"  It's  not  in  their  line,"  Cowie  said  with  his  tolerant 
smile.  "  They're  very  good  sort  of  girls,  but  they're 
not  clever.  I  couldn't  talk  to  them  about  littery 
things  the  way  I  do  to  you.  They're  first-rate  at  cake- 
baking  and  all  that  kind  of  thing.  Wee  Aggie  took 
a  prize  for  a  currant  cake  at  our  church  bazaar." 

"  How  good !  "  Drusilla  said.  She  remembered 
reading  that  really  nice  young  men  always  talked 
about  their  mothers  and  sisters  and  was  ashamed  of 
her  own  tendency  to  feel  bored.  Cowie  went  on  to 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  183 

give  a  laughing  account  of  wee  Aggie's  mixing  of  the 
cake  and  the  number  of  dishes  that  she  had  "  re- 
quisitioned." 

"  But  we  all  have  our  own  lines,"  Cowie  said 
suddenly.  He  looked  at  her  anxiously  with  shining 
eyes.  "  I  think  women  have  a  perfect  right  to  develop 
their  own  individualities.  I  shouldn't  think  of 
limiting  an  intellectual  woman — like  yourself  say — to 
domestic  work." 

"  But  I'm  not  intellectual,"  Drusilla  said,  with  a 
flash  of  her  teeth  between  the  smiling  red  lips.  "  I'm 
one  of  the  most  ignorant,  uneducated  people  you 
could  imagine.  I'm  fond  of  poetry  and  music  and 
pictures,  that's  all.  I  couldn't  make  anything." 

"  Well — the  feminine  brain  is  not  creative,"  Cowie 
said.  "  That  is  so.  Say  a  cultured  woman — or  an 
artistic  woman,  if  you  like.  '  Intellectual  woman  ' 
makes  you  think  of  a  rather  masculine  sort  of  person." 
They  were  opposite  the  Trathbyes'  close  and  Cowie 
laid  a  pleading  hand  on  Drusilla's  arm.  "  Walk  to 
the  end  of  the  terrace,  will  you  ?  It's  such  a  fine 
night." 

It  was  a  windy  dusty  night  and  Lochaber  Gardens 
was  built  on  a  steep  slope  :  but  Drusilla  turned,  not 
displeased  by  the  wistfulness  in  Cowie's  manner. 
Self-consciousness  made  her  begin  to  talk  quickly. 

"  You  spoke  about  your  church  bazaar  ?  I  thought 
you  didn't  go  to  any  church  ?  " 

Cowie  expanded  in  self-delight. 

"  That  is  so.  As  a  rule  I  do  not.  But  I've  never 
given  up  being  a  member  of  our  church — I've  never 
lifted  my  lines.  My  mother  has  old-fashioned  preju- 
dices and  I  think  I  shouldn't  cause  her  pain.  .  .  .  I'm 
practically  an  agnostic.  I  think  it's  the  honest 


184          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

attitude.  I  don't  know  if  I've  told  you — I  was  much 
influenced  by  reading  Darwin  and  Haeckel.  .  .  ." 

Cowie  went  on,  trotting  out  all  the  old  sayings  of 
the  debating  society,  the  maxims  of  brotherly  love, 
the  gibes  at  Hell-fire. 

"  We  don't  go  much  to  church,"  Drusilla  said,  half 
listening.  ..."  We're  Episcopalians,  you  know :  but 
/  like  to  go  into  Catholic  chapels."  There  was  a  pause. 

"  It  doesn't  matter,"  Cowie  said  eagerly.  "  Mother 
wouldn't  mind.'  ' 

"  Mind  ?   When  ?  "  Drusilla  faltered. 

"  When  I  bring  you  to  see  her,"  Cowie  said,  with  a 
tender  quizzicalness.  A  smile  had  flashed  out  on  his 
face,  but  he  was  blushing.  "  When  am  I  to  get 
bringing  you — eh  ?  " 

Drusilla  felt  his  hands  close  warmly,  insistently, 
over  hers.  She  drew  hers  away  excitedly,  and, 
turning,  walked  quickly  homewards.  Her  maiden- 
hood was  offended  by  Cowie's  way  of  counting  on  her 
consent ;  and  this  feeling  for  the  time  overruled  all 
others,  so  that  she  was  not  conscious  of  surprise  at  the 
suddenness  of  his  speech,  nor  regret  for  his  dis- 
appointment. She  understood  now  why  girls  did  not 
like  him  :  there  was  a  kind  of  violence  and  disrespect 
in  thus  cutting  short  his  time  of  wooing.  She  felt 
that  he  thought  of  her  as  a  woman  to  marry,  not  as 
a  girl  to  love  :  she  felt  aged,  unhaloed,  disrobed  of 
mystery  by  his  action. 

"  Are  you  angry  ?  "  Cowie  gasped,  bending  towards 
her,  nervously  smiling. 

"  No,"  Drusilla  said  without  truth.  She  was  angry, 
but  could  not  have  explained  her  feeling.  "  Only 
.  .  .  that  was  a  funny  thing  to  say.  Did  your  mother 
ask  you  to  bring  me  to  see  her  ?  " 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  185 

"  No,"  Cowie  said,  smiling  cunningly,  in  enjoyment 
of  her  womanly  wiles.  "  But  I  hope  she  will  some 
day.  .  .  .  She  has  an  idea  I'm  going  with  some  young 
woman  .  .  .  and  she  knows  I'm  not  the  kind  of  fellow 
to  amuse  myself." 

"  Going  with  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  beg  pardon.  I  suppose  you  don't  like  the 
expression,"  Cowie  said.  "It's  rather  vulgar.  You're 
such  a  superior  girl,"  he  added  admiringly. 

Drusilla  remembered  the  grace  and  self-possession 
shown  by  the  girls  hi  novels  when  they  refused  lovers. 
She  found  herself  nearly  inarticulate  :  she  tried  to 
explain  and  had  a  sense  of  struggling  to  move  an 
enormous  weight.  .  .  .  Cowie's  voice  came  to  her — 
with  a  touching  note  in  it — saying  :  "  It's  '  No  ' 
then?  It's  'No.'  .  .  .  You'd  rather  be  left  alone 
just  now  ?  "  She  felt  cruel  in  baffling  his  eagerness 
even  with  her  conviction  that  his  love  was  a  poor 
material  thing.  At  the  close  entrance  she  clasped 
his  hand  in  both  of  hers  : 

"  I'm  sorry.  ...  I  was  a  stupid  wretch.  .  .  .  I'm 
sorry." 

"  Thank  you,"  Cowie  said,  with  a  wan  smile.  She 
saw  that  he  had  no  faith  in  the  finality  of  her  answer, 
and  she  had  a  weak  feeling  of  relief  that  his  self- 
confidence  saved  him  from  pain.  Had  she  really 
"  gone  with  "  him  ?  The  thought  was  not  tolerable. 
She  could  not  consult  her  mother  as  the  happy  girl 
in  fiction  did.  She  felt  again  that  sense  of  being  made 
old,  of  being  sobered  out  of  romance,  as  she  realised 
that  he  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  she  understood. 
He  had  a  detestable  way  of  calling  her  a  "  woman  "  : 
it  seemed  insistent  on  sex. 

A  boy  with  an  apple  in  his  hand  clattered  down 


186          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

the  stair,  and  Brasilia  gave  him  a  neighbourly 
greeting. 

"  Hallowe'en's  coming,"  Cowie  said.  ..."  Do  you 
dream  on  Hallowe'en,  Miss  Trathbye  ?  Good  night." 

The  boy  laughed  archly,  munching  the  apple. 


IV 

On  All  Saints'  Eve  the  Trathbyes  had  a  fire  in  the 
sitting-room  and  a  sugared  bun  for  tea.  Mrs.  Trath- 
bye cut  the  bun  and  Drusilla  and  Essie  could  not  help 
suspecting  that  she  had  felt  the  knife  jolt  on  the  paper- 
wrapped  ring  in  a  certain  slice  and  had  deliberately 
given  it  to  Kathleen.  The  slight  chill  caused  by  this 
piece  of  injustice  was,  however,  melted  away  by  the 
unusual  plenty  and  fun  of  the  evening.  Essie  had  had 
a  "  rise,"  and  had  bought  the  cake  and  some  fruit ; 
and  after  tea  the  girls  knelt  by  the  fire  and  burned 
pairs  of  nuts  on  the  bars.  The  red  glow  shone  in  their 
hair  and  glistened  in  their  eyes  ;  and  Aunt  Caroline 
— who  was  ailing  that  day — lay  joking  on  the  couch 
near  them.  Mrs.  Trathbye,  preparing  the  plates  for 
fortune-telling,  went  to  and  fro,  now  to  her  work- 
basket  for  a  scrap  of  cloth — red  for  a  soldier,  blue  for 
a  sailor,  black  for  a  minister — now  to  the  kitchen  for 
salt  or  water. 

Essie,  stealthily  smiling,  set  two  filberts  on  the  bar  : 
she  was  thinking  of  the  cashier's  friend  who  often 
came  for  him  at  lunch-time,  who  had  asked  to  be 
introduced.  ...  A  little  giggle  escaped  Essie  as 
she  placed  the  nuts  :  then  she  uttered  an  "  Aw  !  " 
of  disappointment  as  the  larger  one  rolled  into  the 
fire. 

"  It's  not  fair  to  try  it  over  again,"  Kathleen  said 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  187 

in  her  unpleasant  way  :  but  Brasilia,  who  was  sure 
of  whom  the  great  glossy  nut  was  symbolic,  declared 
that  the  accident  had  happened  before  the  rite  had 
really  commenced.  Essie  tried  again,  but  this  time 
the  two  nuts  only  smoked  a  little  before  sinking  into 
a  sudden  oiliness. 

Brasilia  would  not  use  a  nut  to  represent  Michael 
Quentin  :  it  would  have  seemed  sacrilegious  to  have 
placed  herself  and  Michael  on  the  bar  beside  Essie 
and  the  cashier's  friend.  It  was  so  clear  to  her  that 
Michael  and  the  cashier's  friend  could  have  nothing 
in  common.  So  she  chose  the  names  of  men  to  whom 
she  was  indifferent,  avoiding,  however,  the  name  of 
Alick  Cowie.  Kathleen,  too,  was  making  a  mere 
sport  of  the  thing,  and  presently  said  that  she  would 
try  herself  with  Mr.  Patullo. 

**  If  he  catches  fire  he's  sure  to  blaze,"  Mrs.  Trathbye 
said  gaily.  Patullo's  drunkenness  was  now  an  open 
scandal  to  his  neighbours  :  for  the  poor  man  had 
allowed  himself  to  be  seen  twice  in  an  unsteady  state 
on  the  stairs  and  was  therefore  reported  to  be  unable 
to  mount  them  any  night  without  assistance.  On  the 
day  following  the  second  of  these  drunken  fits,  Patullo 
had  been  ill,  and  Mrs.  Trathbye  and  Aunt  Caroline 
had  gone  again  and  again  to  his  door  with  neighbourly 
offers  of  tea  and  coffee  and  hot  water.  Miss  Morland 
had  come  up  in  the  afternoon  ;  and  Brasilia  thought 
with  a  wondering  disgust  of  how  the  three  women 
had  contended  in  their  ministries  to  Patullo. 

"  You'd  better  try  him  with  Miss  Morland  !  "  Aunt 
Caroline  said  in  her  reckless  way  that  had  no  faith  and 
practically  no  malice  behind  it,  but  was  simply  an 
empty  mind's  echoing  of  the  ideas  of  others.  Aunt 
Caroline,  who  was  something  of  a  courtier  to  her 


188          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

sister-in-law,  was  pleased  to  win  laughter  from  Mrs. 
Trathbye. 

Kathleen  set  the  two  nuts  on  the  bar ;  but  in  her 
mirth  her  hand  shook  and  they  rolled  alarmingly. 

"  That's  not  the  way  to  put  them,  child  !  "  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said,  kneeling  on  the  rug.  "  There — I'll 
give  you  a  wrinkle,  as  Miss  Morland  says  .  .  .  ."  It 
was  one  of  Grace  Morland's  phrases,  and  Mrs.  Trathbye 
was  intensely  amused  by  her  own  rather  poor  imitation 
of  Grace's  voice. 

"  Well,  she  can  spare  one !  "  Kathleen  said,  and, 
giggling,  called  every  one's  attention  to  the  jest. 

"  Ah,  you're  very  dry,  Drusilla  !  "  Mrs.  Trathbye 
said  to  her  unsmiling  daughter.  "  Sitting  there  with 
a  solemn  face  and  them  all  laughing  round  you." 

Going  to  bed,  Drusilla  thought  of  this  and  wondered 
if,  a  few  months  ago,  she  would  have  been  amused  at 
the  joke  :  she  thought  not,  but,  censuring  herself, 
could  remember  having  laughed  at  sayings  as  vulgar 
and  unkindly  stupid.  She  rejoiced  now  in  feeling 
that  she  had  been  left  outside  of  the  laughter.  She 
was  glad  of  all  the  points  of  difference  between  her 
and  her  relations,  between  her  and  all  the  people  that 
she  knew.  The  reproaches  of  "  odd,"  "  cold,"  "  im- 
possible to  understand,"  "  so  different  from  the  rest," 
had  no  longer  power  to  burn  her  heart.  If  she  had 
been  the  same  as  the  others,  she  could  not  have  cared 
for  Michael  Quentin.  Had  God  made  her  and  kept 
her  different  for  Michael  ?  She  was  glad  that  no  one 
had  loved  the  beauty  that  had  seemed  so  wasted — 
that  no  one  had  fondled  her  hah*,  sweet-smelling,  with 
its  wonderful  crispness  of  lights  and  darks.  Girls  in 
novels  had  mothers  who  stroked  the  shining  locks  and 
wound  them  about  their  fingers  and  dressed  them  for 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  189 

the  world's  admiration.  .  .  .  But  she  was  glad  that 
God  had  kept  hers  untouched  like  a  precious  thing  in 
a  casket,  awaiting  the  coming  of  the  rightful  inheritor 
so  that  she  might  let  it  down  and  bathe  Michael's  face 
in  its  bright  virgin  astonishment  and  wipe  his  eyes 
with  it  and  press  it  to  his  lips.  .  .  . 

She  got  into  bed,  and  putting  her  stocking  under 
her  pillow  lay  waiting  to  fall  asleep  and  dream  of 
Michael.  Essie  was  still  undressing  when  Mrs. 
Trathbye  came  into  the  room,  wandering  here  and 
there  in  a  furtive,  tentative  fashion ;  taking  a  pin 
from  the  cushion  on  the  dressing-table,  asking  if  the 
windows  were  not  too  wide  open. 

"  Aren't  you  going  to  bed,  mother  ?  "  Essie  asked, 
busy  with  her  stocking.  ..."  Dillie  has  hers  in  :  she 
can't  speak  to  say  good  night." 

Essie  began  to  murmur  the  incantation  proper  to 
the  Hallowe'en  custom  of  "  dreaming  on "  one's 
stocking  ;  and  suddenly  Mrs.  Trathbye  came  close  to 
the  bed  :  she  spoke  like  one  whose  uneasiness  pricks 
her  into  speech  of  which  she  is  ashamed. 

"  Dillie  ...  I  hope  now  you  aren't  foolish  enough 
to  be  thinking  Michael  Quentin  has  any  matrimonial 
intentions.  .  .  .  Sure  you  aren't  ?  ...  It  would  be 
too  ridiculous  to  take  such  an  idea  into  your  head. 
.  .  .  Why,  he  paid  less  attention  to  you  than  to  any 
one  of  them  !  " 

The  Holy  Eve  superstition  gave  Drusilla  an  excuse 
for  keeping  silence  :  she  turned  her  head  so  that  the 
glowing  hair  fell  over  her  ear  and  cheek.  Mrs. 
Trathbye's  voice,  pleading  insanely  to  be  reassured, 
stabbed  her  with  contempt.  "  Don't  tell  me  that 
Michael  Quentin  cares  for  you,"  her  mother  seemed  to 
be  begging.  "  Don't  tell  me  that,  for  I  couldn't  bear 


190          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

to  hear  it."  The  brilliance  of  the  match,  the  ad- 
vantages that  would  accrue  from  it  to  the  whole 
family,  were  lost  sight  of  in  the  dread  of  the  intolerable 
pain  of  seeing  Drusilla  beloved,  dazzling,  triumphant. 
.  .  .  Mrs.  Trathbye  had  been  driven  into  speech  by 
her  daughter's  reserve  :  the  mother  had  been  waiting 
for  Michael's  name  so  that  she  might  soothe  her 
jealousy  with  the  discovery  that  her  fears  were  un- 
founded :  her  crouching  attitude  as  she  bent  over  the 
bed,  her  eyes  that  pretended  to  smile,  seemed  to  ask 
for  mercy. 

Drusilla  suddenly  sat  up,  linking  her  arms  about  her 
mother's  neck  :  but  Mrs.  Trathbye  tore  herself  from 
the  clasp  and  hurried  from  the  room. 

Essie  stood  for  a  minute  in  puzzlement ;  then,  with 
a  complete  egotism,  she  turned  out  the  gas,  put  her 
stocking  under  her  pillow,  and  got  into  bed. 

Michael  Quentin  was  at  The  Corner  House  on  All 
Saints'  Eve  ;  and  he  had  brought  down  old  Patullo 
to  spend  a  few  days  with  him.  Michael  hoped  that 
the  pure  air,  the  quietude,  and,  especially,  the  colour- 
scheme  of  the  house,  would  have  beneficial  effects  on 
Patullo.  .  .  . 

There  was  no  doubt  that  the  poor  man  was  drinking 
more  than  ever — or  at  least  with  less  concealment. 
Racie  Moore  had  spoken  to  Michael  of  the  folly  of 
giving  Patullo  money  for  drink.  It  was  base  of 
Racie  to  say  that  it  was  not  safe  even  to  give 
Patullo  money  for  flowers  for  his  little  boy's  grave  : 
the  suspicion  seemed  to  Michael  worthy  of  a  fiend, 
and  he  said  so. 

"  Well,  can't  you  give  the  money  to  Miss  Morland  ?" 
Racie  said.  "  She'll  take  the  flowers  out — she  often 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  191 

goes.     It   will   be   safer  so.  ...  She's  the   kind  of 
person  to  enjoy  visiting  graves." 

Michael,  yearning  for  the  soul  of  Patullo,  made  an 
effort  to  follow  this  advice.  He  spoke  openly  to 
Patullo,  explaining  that  he  did  not  despise  him,  that 
he  believed  that  to  resist  the  alcohol  crave  was  an 
heroic  destiny.  And,  under  the  soothing,  toning 
influence  of  Michael's  respect  (or  perhaps  of  the  colour- 
scheme  of  The  Corner  House)  Patullo  developed  a 
temporary  energy  of  resistance.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  sympathetic  admirers  that  The  Corner  House  had 
ever  had  :  the  rooms  certainly  seemed  bare  to  him  : 
but  he  acquiesced  in  Michael's  arguments  of  the  ex- 
pression of  a  single  mood,  of  pure  lines  and  hues,  of 
the  undisturbed  eye  and  heart.  Against  the  unsullied 
walls  Patullo's  face  showed  horribly  discoloured  and 
demoralised  :  but  before  the  end  of  the  third  day 
Michael  observed  a  distinct  change  in  him.  His  nose 
was  not  so  red  ;  the  whites  of  his  eyes  cleared  : 
something  of  the  bowed  weariness  went  from  his  walk. 
He  declared  that  Michael's  vegetarian  diet  was 
delightful :  it  had  made  him  a  little  headachy  at  first, 
he  believed,  but  that  feeling  had  soon  passed.  He 
contented  himself,  with  apparently  not  much  difficulty, 
with  the  light  wines  that  Michael  drank,  but  laugh- 
ingly confessed  that  he  could  not  cultivate  a  taste  for 
fruit.  Michael  was  disappointed  by  this,  but — having 
read  much  of  the  fruit  cure  for  alcoholism — continued 
to  tempt  Patullo,  even  in  his  bedroom,  with  still-life 
groups  of  purple  grapes,  pears,  and  peaches.  They 
had  long,  enjoyable  talks  on  the  food  question,  and 
Patullo,  with  his  air  of  intelligent  courtesy,  showed  a 
surprised  interest  in  Michael's  statement  that  right 
dieting  was  the  basis  of  right  living.  .  .  .  Michael 


192          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

ventured  to  read  aloud  Tolstoi's  "  First  Step  " — 
and,  as  he  had  expected,  was  overmastered  by  his 
emotions. 

"  Your  loss  of  self-control  does  you  credit,  Mr. 
Quentin,"  Patullo  said,  wiping  his  spectacles  and 
coughing. 

It  pleased  Michael  to  consider  Patullo  as  a  means  by 
which  he  could  make  himself  a  little  more  worthy  of 
Drusilla ;  his  first  adventure  in  the  long  series  of 
purifying  rescues  of  the  wronged  helpless,  and  sanctify- 
ing battles  with  stupidity  and  sin.  For  this  reason 
alone  Patullo  would  have  become  dear  to  the  young 
man :  but,  even  when  not  considered  as  an  instrument, 
Patullo  had  attributes  which  moved  to  compassion, 
thence  to  liking.  After  a  few  long  talks  with  him 
it  was  possible  for  Michael  to  reconstruct  him  as  a 
young  man,  devout  yet  ardently  classic,  his  memory 
filled  with  long  passages  of  Greek  and  Latin,  his  heart 
with  dreams  of  fair  columns,  black  against  saffron 
sunsets,  and  masses  of  olive,  grey  in  opalescent 
mornings.  "  I  always  had  an  ambition  to  go  to  Italy 
and  to  Greece,"  Patullo  said,  with  his  squeamish 
smile.  "  Nothing  could  be  more  educative  than  the 
old  pagan  countries  seen  with  Christian  eyes." 

"  Oh,  I  wish  I'd  been  educated  !  "  Michael  groaned. 
"  I  wish  I'd  been  taught  some  one  fine  thing 
thoroughly,  so  that  I  might  carry  it  about  with  me  all 
my  life  !  .  .  ." 

Patullo  looked  at  him  emotionally  ;  his  self-respect 
going  up  with  a  leap  at  the  realisation  that  he  was 
being  envied  by  Michael  Quentin. 

"  Mr.  Quentin  you — hegh,  hegh,  hegh  ! — you  do 
carry  something  fine  about  with  you,  I  think,  if  you'll 
allow  me  to  say  so.  ...  As  for  the  Greek  and  Latin, 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  193 

why  shouldn't  you  read  with  me  ?  I've  known  men 
who've  begun  at  nearly  twice  your  age." 

Michael  looked  up,  swaying  about  and  blushing. 

"  As  a  friend,"  Patullo  added  firmly. 

"  Thank  you,"  Michael  said. 

They  read  together  ;  and  suddenly  one  night  there 
flashed  into  Michael's  mind  a  scheme  by  which  he 
might  insure  the  tutor  against  the  return  of  his  craving. 
The  plan  was  so  simple,  it  rushed  forth  in  such  com- 
pleteness, that  Michael  felt  sure  that  it  must  have  been 
suggested  to  him  by  some  friend  "  on  the  other  side  " 
—probably  by  Rollo  himself.  To  drive  the  demon 
out  of  Patullo's  life,  it  was  only  necessary  to  surround 
him  with  pure  hopes  and  interests.  He  would  ask 
Patullo  to  come  with  him  to  Italy  and  Greece,  to  spend 
a  few  months  in  study  and  in  wandering  in  the  fair 
lands  of  his  dreams.  Michael's  ignorance,  his  depen- 
dence on  Patullo,  would  develop  just  the  right  sense  of 
importance  in  this  man  whom  the  world  had  baffled 
and  despised. 

It  would  not  be  an  easy  thing  to  do.  Michael's 
heart  quailed  at  the  idea  of  months  to  be  passed 
without  seeing  or  hearing  from  Drusilla  :  but  the  very 
difficulty  of  the  deed  made  it  seem  the  more  knightly, 
the  more  saintly,  the  more  acceptable  to  his  princess 
and  to  God.  ...  It  was  a  slight  thing  :  it  was  made 
significant  only  by  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  done  : 
the  offering  to  his  love  of  this  poor  wronged  bemired 
soul,  made  clean  and  strong,  was  only  a  confession  of 
his  sense  of  the  vileness  of  his  own  soul.  ...  It  was 
only  the  wiping  of  his  feet  before  he  dared  enter  the 
temple. 

Since  his  meeting  with  Drusilla,  Michael  had  spent 
a  great  deal  of  his  time  in  the  white  studio.  He 

N 


194          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

prayed  there,  sometimes  after  many  hours  of  fasting, 
and  he  believed  that  the  moral  strength  thus  acquired 
was  giving  him  power  to  hold  the  soul  of  Thomas 
Patullo.  The  idea  of  taking  Patullo  away  came — he 
could  not  doubt — as  a  response  to  those  long,  rap- 
turous prayers  when  his  spirit  seemed  to  come  near 
to  peeping  over  the  physical  barrier.  "  Do  this 
thing,"  the  powers  on  the  other  side  seemed  to  say. 
"  You  want  to  do  something — do  this  first."  There 
was  exultation  in  the  thought  of  the  pain  that  it 
would  cause  him  to  go  away,  silent,  while  their  love 
was  in  its  misty  dawning  phase  of  chance  meetings 
and  sudden  partings.  .  .  .  Drusilla  would  understand. 

"  He's  clean  daft,"  Mattie  the  cook  said  on  All 
Saints'  Eve  as  Michael  went  up  the  stair  to  the  white 
studio.  Mattie  spoke  to  the  new  parlour-maid  and 
the  new  housemaid  ;  for  Muriel  and  Helen  had  left, 
asserting  that  they  were  "  bored  stiff  "  by  The  Corner 
House  and  the  "  goings-on  "  of  its  owner.  Tosh,  the 
serious  chauffeur,  had  done  nothing  to  lighten  their  lot. 

"  He's  up  a  pole,"  Mattie  said,  referring  to  Michael. 
"  Poor  lad,  I  declare  I  sometimes  feel  that  sorry  for 
him — it  vexes  me  to  think  of  him.  Jim " — the 
second-gardener — "  Jim  says  to  me,  '  My  word, 
Mattie,'  he  says, '  if  I'd  Mr.  Quentin's  money,  I'd  have 
a  rare  time  with  it.'  So'd  I,  wouldn't  you  ?  I 
declare — maybe  it  isn't  a  right  thing  to  say  when  it's 
not  us  has  the  disposing  of  things,  but  I  sometimes 
can't  help  thinking  money's  always  given  to  the  wrong 
sort  of  folks,  don't  you  ?  Always  goes  to  folks  that 
don't  seem  to  know  what  to  do  with  theirselfs.  He 
chooses  his  companions  very  badly,  I  think,  don't  you  ? 
My,  you'd  expect  him  to  know  nothing  but  ladies  an' 
gentlemen — but  they  won't  come  to  his  house,  maybe. 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  195 

Just  look  at  this  last  one — Old  Bottlenose  !  My,  if 
you  was  to  pour  hot  water  on  his  clothes  you'd  get  a 
barrel  of  whisky  as  strong  as  anybody  'ud  want  it." 
Mattie  laughed  at  the  applausive  glee  of  the  others, 
as  arm-in-arm  they  went  down  the  drive  to  the  head 
gardener's  lodge  at  the  western  gate.  Turning,  she 
looked  back  at  The  Corner  House,  blue-white  and 
golden-eyed  in  a  violet  night  of  frost-whipped  air  and 
a  deep  dazzle  of  stars.  The  head  gardener's  cottage 
was  aglow  and  loud  with  the  merry-making  of  diving 
for  apples  and  burning  of  mated  nuts.  "  My,  girls, 
I  couldn't  bite  an  apple  and  look  in  the  glass,  could 
you  ?  "  Mattie  said.  "  I'd  drop  down  dead."  She 
added,  with  an  apparent  irrelevance  but  a  real  linking 
of  occult  ideas  :  "  There's  a  light  in  his  stoodio,  of 
course.  There's  nothing  in  that  room." 

The  others  acclaimed  and  questioned. 

"  Well,  I  looked  in  once  over  his  shoulder  an'  I  saw 
nothing,"  Mattie  said,  "  except  a  lot  of  old  uncanny 
books  and  a  jug  of  roses." 

"That'll  be  for  the  dead  young  lady,"  the  new 
housemaid  said  pitifully.  ..."  I  think  he's  awful 
nice.  He's  awful  kind  to  poor  folks.  I  think  he's  a 
real  good  Christian." 

"  No  :  he's  a  theasaphist,"  Mattie  said.  "  At  least 
I  think  so,"  she  modified  in  charity. 

Michael  had  remained  in  the  studio  till  his  plan  was 
a  finished  structure,  resolute  in  every  detail.  The 
struggle  had  been  harder  than  his  first  diffused  feeling 
of  exaltation  had  allowed  him  to  expect :  there  were 
fears  and  anguishes  in  the  thought  of  so  many 
material  miles  between  him  and  Drusilla  :  his  senses 
anticipated  the  hunger  of  months  without  the  touch 
of  her,  the  sight  of  her,  the  sound  of  her  childish 


196          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

expectant  voice,  the  scent  of  her  hair.  ...  It  was  not 
till  one  o'clock  that  Michael  rose  from  his  knees, 
rather  light-headed  but  ecstatic,  and,  turning  out  the 
stove  and  the  lights,  stood  for  a  minute  staring  up  at 
the  blue-black  slopes  of  the  glass  roof  spattered  with 
white  stars.  The  scent  of  roses  was  strong  in  his 
nostrils  as  he  left  the  room  and  went  downstairs,  his 
mind  full  of  the  image  of  a  wan,  happy  knight,  in 
early  morning,  stealing  from  a  chapel,  his  vow  taken 
and  his  vigil  over. 

Michael  slept  in  the  blue  room,  and  the  indigo  bath- 
room lay  between  him  and  the  violet  guest-chamber 
in  which  Patullo  was.  Having  bathed,  Michael  lay 
down  on  his  bed,  which,  like  all  the  other  beds  in  The 
Corner  House,  was  a  mere  stretcher.  He  found  that 
he  could  not  sleep  :  his  brain,  excited  by  his  long 
fast  and  striving,  was  wrought  up  to  a  dancing  activity : 
images  trooped  through  it,  vividly  coloured,  of  an 
intense  luminosity,  solidly  shaped  :  the  scent  of  roses 
seemed  to  be  constantly  with  him.  The  desire  to  see 
Drusilla  became  intolerable  :  he  stretched  out  his 
arms,  fancying  her,  rose-cheeked  in  the  ruddy  showers 
of  her  hah*.  .  .  . 

He  sat  up,  flinging  aside  the  blue  silken  counterpane. 
A  big  round  moon  was  riding  now  in  the  sky,  and  he 
could  see  the  outlines  of  the  room.  There  was  a 
mirror  inset  in  the  wall  at  right  angles  to  the  bed,  and 
Michael,  remembering  that  it  was  All  Saints'  Eve, 
gazed  into  it,  fixing  all  the  power  of  his  will  on  the 
thought  of  Drusilla.  She  would  know  where  she  lay 
sleeping  far  away,  white-clad  with  rosy  cheeks  and 
round  limbs  and  ruddy  hair  :  she  would  look,  re- 
assuring, from  the  glass.  .  .  . 

As  Michael  leaned  forward,  fervently  watching,  he 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  197 

saw  the  depths  of  the  dark  glass  lighten  and  quiver  ; 
and  he  saw  a  face  look  out. 

Not  Drusilla's  face,  round-cheeked  and  richly 
coloured,  melting  into  the  splendour  of  her  hair. 
But  the  face  of  Rollo,  sharp  and  wistful  and  kingly, 
as  it  had  shown  in  its  coffin.  .  .  . 

Michael  got  out  of  bed.  The  thing  had  been  only  a 
delusion,  due  to  light-headedness  brought  on  by 
hunger  and  want  of  sleep  and  strain.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Patullo  !  "  Michael  called,  subduedly.  There 
was  no  reply,  and,  rising,  he  crossed  the  indigo  bath- 
room and  set  open  the  door  of  the  violet  chamber. 
The  moonlight  showed  him  the  beautiful  room,  the 
rosy  heliotrope  of  the  walls,  the  long  mauve  curtains 
embroidered  in  greens  and  blues,  the  emerald  and 
amethyst  colourings  of  the  tiles,  the  Michaelmas 
daisies  in  a  tall  blue-green  jar,  the  purple  grapes  and 
faint  shape  of  a  siphon  on  a  table  by  the  bedside  ; 
and  on  the  bed,  under  white  draperies  and  a  quilt  of 
purple  silk,  old  Patullo  lying  asleep.  His  head  was  in 
shadow,  its  ugliness  only  guessable  :  but  he  breathed 
gutteringly,  not  as  if  the  air  flooding  in  at  the  window 
were  a  holy  thing. 

"  Mr.  Patullo " 

Patullo  started  with  a  snapped  breath  that  sounded 
like  "  Cork  !  " — opened  idiotic  eyes. 

"  Excuse  me,  Mr.  Patullo — I'm  fearfully  restless — 
I  simply  can't  sleep.  Would  you  mind  leaving  your 
door  open  and  I'll  leave  mine  open  too  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course.  To  be  sure.  Certainly,  Mr. 
Quentin." 

Patullo's  words  were  formal ;  but  there  was  hi  his 
manner  something  kind,  protective,  almost  familiar 
and  fatherly. 


198          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 


Michael  came  up  to  town  the  next  day  and  sent 
Racie  a  wire  asking  him  to  come  to  Mrs.  Wylie's. 

"  Well,  I  must  say  you  look  rather  ..."  Racie 
said  as  he  came  into  the  maroon-coloured,  leather- 
furnished  room. 

"Rather  what?"  Michael  asked  acidly.  "Sit 
down — have  this  one." 

Racie  sat  in  the  basket-chair  and  Michael  in  the 
arm-chair  opposite  to  him.  There  was  an  attractive 
fire  and  Racie  smoked,  looking  into  it. 

"  I  suppose  you'll  be  able  to  manage  the  meetings 
of  the  Eire  yourself  for  the  next  few  months  ?  " 
Michael  said.  "  Not  the  Mission,  of  course :  I'll 
speak  to  Miss  Morland  about  that." 

"  There  mayn't  be  any  to  manage,"  Racie  suggested. 

"  As  usual :  prepared  for  the  worst,"  Michael 
said. 

"  There  might  be  worse  than  having  no  meetings," 
Racie  said.  He  waited  for  Michael  to  ask  :  "  How  ?  " 
then  added  :  "  For  example,  there  might  be  meetings." 

Michael  uttered  a  short  laugh. 

"  There  are  going  to  be  meetings,"  he  said.  "  And, 
when  I  come  back  in  the  spring,  we're  going  to  have 
some  prominent  men — big  meetings  in  public  halls 
and  all  that." 

"  Oh  !  "  Racie  said.  "  Well,  of  course  .  .  .  with 
five  thousand  I  suppose  .  .  ." 

"We'll  sell  tickets,"  Michael  said.  "There's  no 
earthly  reason  why  it  shouldn't  pay.  I'm  getting 
tired  of  that  tone  of  yours." 

Racie's  judgment  of  the  result  of  the  vow  and  the 
vigil  was  merely  that  Michael  was  in  a  bad  temper. 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  199 

Worrying  about  that  girl,  no  doubt.  As  if  there  were 
any  need  to  worry  ! 

"  I  want  to  tell  you,"  Michael  said,  tickling  Mrs. 
Wylie's  cat  on  the  rug.  "  I'm  going  away  for  a 
holiday — with  Patullo.  He's  told  me  several  times 
he  used  to  be  keen  to  go  to  Rome  and  Athens — and 
Florence  and  Venice,  too,  and  the  rest.  He's  agreed 
to  come  with  me." 

Racie  was  looking  straight,  with  brightening  eyes, 
at  his  friend.  Michael's  resolve  to  leave  the  country 
"  for  a  few  months  " — as  he  had  hinted  in  speaking  of 
the  Eire  Club — could  mean  only  that  he  was  indifferent 
to  Drusilla.  For  it  was  out  of  the  question  that  he 
had  proposed  to  the  girl  and  been  refused.  No  widow 
would  have  allowed  that. 

Racie  concealed  his  satisfaction.  Michael  Quentin 
in  this  perverse  mood  might  be  blown  in  any  direction 
by  careless  words. 

"  I  think  it  may  help  Patullo,"  Michael  said  flushing. 
"  You'll  laugh  at  that  ?  " 

"  No,"  Racie  replied  gravely.  ..."  I'll  see  to  the 
Eire.  I'll  do  anything  you  like."  He  added  quickly, 
afraid  that  he  had  shown  a  too  great  complacence  : 
"  I  suppose  you're  feeling  consumedly  grateful  to 
Patullo  ?  " 

"Yes,"  Michael  flashed  out.  "Patullo  behaved 
like  a  gentleman.  It  takes  a  gentleman  to  accept 
things.  .  .  .  Never  mind.  There's  Warde's  paper  on 
J.  M.  Synge  for  next  meeting ;  and  Mrs.  Topping's 
little  play's  to  be  read  the  evening  after  that.  .  .  ." 
Michael  moved  to  the  table  and  began  to  take  from 
his  pockets  and  spread  out  crushed  wads  of  papers, 
dotted  with  notes. 

"  I  say,"  Racie  said,  on  his  knees  beside  him.  .  .  . 


200          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

"  There's  the  treasurer's  business,  Mick.  Patullo'll 
need  to  hand  over  the  accounts  to  whoever  takes 
it  on.  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  pause.  Blood  surged  up  into  Michael's 
tired  face  so  that  its  clearness  of  colour  was  for  the 
minute  restored.  Racie  was  looking  away. 

"  I  don't  want  Patullo  to  be  bothered  about  accounts 
just  now,"  Michael  said  shufflingly.  "  You  can  just 
go  on  with  the  money  affairs  as  if  you  were  beginning 
afresh.  I'd  rather  you  didn't  ask  Patullo  for  the 
books  or  anything  just  now.  You  see  I  want  his  mind 
to  get — filled  with  fresh  ideas,  you  know." 

"  All  right,"  Racie  said. 

"  I'll  leave  some  money  for  the  club  in  case  there's 
anything  .  .  .  unpaid,"  Michael  said. 

"  All  right.  Blessed  thing  money — cures  all  ills 
and  covers  up  all  scandals,"  Racie  said  with  a  dry 
resentment. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,"  Michael 
said  angrily. 

Miss  Morland,  consulted  about  the  Mission,  showed 
her  usual  enthusiastic  loyalty.  "  Isn't  it  extra- 
ordinary how  those  boys,  Mick  Quentin  and  Racie 
Moore,  depend  on  me  ?  "  she  said  to  Drusilla.  "  I'm 
amused  by  it,  Dillie  :  it's  so  remarkable."  She  went 
a  score  of  times  to  Mrs.  Wylie's  with  absurd  little 
messages,  of  an  inflated  importance.  She  bustled  to 
and  from  old  Patullo's  flat,  Patullo  having  returned  to 
town  to  set  his  affairs  in  order  before  his  journey. 
Under  Miss  Morland's  hunger  for  eminence  there 
shone  something  grateful  and  glad. 

Drusilla  had  not  believed  Miss  Morland's  statement 
that  Michael  was  going  away  with  Patullo.  Grace 
was  always  making  mistakes  :  everything  she  did  and 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  201 

said  was  characterised  by  that  same  impudent  glib 
slackness.  It  was  not  till  Drusilla  met  Patullo  on  the 
stairs  that  she  really  knew  that  Michael  was  going. 

It  was  the  Trathbyes'  washing-day  and  Aunt  Caro- 
line was  on  the  green,  troubling  the  washerwoman. 
The  clothes,  flapping  furiously  on  the  swaying  lines, 
were  drying  quickly  in  the  wind  ;  and  Mrs.  Trathbye 
and  Drusilla  were  carrying  a  basketful  indoors  when 
Patullo  met  them. 

Drusilla,  wind-blown,  in  an  old  blouse  and  skirt, 
would  have  passed  Patullo  with  a  smile  :  but  she  felt 
her  mother  jerk  the  handle  of  the  basket,  and  they 
set  it  down.  It  was  strange  how  Patullo's  masculinity 
was  held  to  atone  for  his  meanness  in  that  matter  of 
the  two  shillings  and  his  reported  perpetual  inebriety 
on  the  stairs. 

"  Well  .  .  .  have  you  been  writing  anything,  Miss 
Trathbye  ?  "  she  heard  Patullo  say. 

"  I  thought  of  trying  it  again  ...  I  commenced 
one  or  two  things,"  she  murmured,  in  fear  of  her 
mother's  annoyance  at  Patullo  turning  his  attention 
to  her. 

"  Ah,  she  hasn't  any  taste  for  anything  of  that  sort," 
Mrs.  Trathbye  said  ;  and  began  to  tell  how  Kathleen 
was  going  in  for  a  Joy  Wheel  Competition  in  one  of 
the  weeklies.  Patullo  inclined  his  head,  saying,  "  Yes, 
yes,"  and  forcing  little  "  hegh-hegh's  "  of  laughter  at 
Mrs.  Trathbye's  confused  account  of  how  you  cut  out 
the  wheel  in  three  circles,  and,  having  mounted  these 
on  cardboard,  swung  the  outermost  circle  round  till 
the  right  object  was  opposite  to  the  right  person,  and 
the  number  in  the  innermost  circle  showed  the  day 
on  which  the  thing  happened. 

"  Very  ingenious,"  Patullo  said  with  his  piteous 


202          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

smile,  which  ran  along  the  grief-worn  channels  in  his 
face.  "  I  hope  Miss  Kathleen  will  be  successful.  .  .  . 
Did  you  hear  I  was  going  away,  Miss  Trathbye  ?  " 

Drusilla  had  impatiently  caught  the  handle  of  the 
basket :  she  clutched  it  more  tightly. 

"  Yes.  Miss  Morland  told  me  you  were  thinking 
of  it." 

"  It's  settled,"  Patullo  said.  "  I  am  going  to  act 
as  travelling  companion  to  Mr.  Quentin  :  he  is  very 
keen  to  see  Rome  and  Greece  and  to  rub  up  his 
acquaintanceship  with  art  and  literature.  We  are 
leaving  on  the  seventeenth." 

"  It  ought  to  be  lovely,"  Drusilla  said.  Mrs. 
Trathbye  silently  lifted  the  other  handle  of  the  basket 
and  they  went  into  the  house. 

Drusilla  was  intolerably  aware  of  her  mother 
regarding  her  ruthfully  ;  and  several  times  during  the 
day  Mrs.  Trathbye  spoke  to  her  daughter  in  the  tender 
chaffing  tone  that  one  uses  to  a  hurt  child  who, 
embraced,  is  in  danger  of  breaking  down. 

"  She'd  be  good  to  me  always  if  I  were  disgraced," 
Drusilla  thought  in  anger,  "  or  if  something  happened 
to  make  me  ugly." 

But  she  was  glad  that  nothing  had  happened.  As 
she  rose  up  out  of  her  first  prostration,  she  remem- 
bered that  nearly  two  weeks  lay  between  her  and  the 
seventeenth  of  November,  and  that  there  would  be  a 
meeting  of  the  Eire  Club  next  Thursday.  She  would 
see  Michael  then — unless,  indeed,  he  came  to  the  house 
before  then.  She  exulted,  defiant,  in  the  thought 
that  only  Michael  truly  loved  her  beauty ;  and  he 
loved  it  because  he  saw  through  it  to  the  eternal  soul 
of  which  it  was  the  symbol.  This  was  a  thing  that 
she  felt  rather  than  thought :  for  her  thoughts  were 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  203 

seldom  definite  forms  in  the  colour  and  light  of  her 
emotions. 

"  You  aren't  thinking  of  going  to  the  club  to- 
night ?  "  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  suddenly  on  Thursday 
afternoon.  She  had  noticed  that,  every  day  of  late, 
Drusilla  had  dressed  herself  very  carefully,  putting 
on  her  best  embroidered  collars  and  massing  her  hair 
low  on  her  neck,  with  a  big  brown  bow  in  it.  The 
style  made  her  look  very  young — much  younger 
than  Essie,  incomparably  younger  than  the  solid 
Kathleen. 

'  Yes,  I'm  going,"  Drusilla  said  with  her  usual 
gentleness  of  speech,  but  with  a  note  of  resistant 
cheerfulness. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  dropped  her  sewing,  rose,  and  walked 
agitatedly  to  and  fro.  They  were  alone  in  the  kitchen, 
Aunt  Caroline  having  gone  to  the  post-office.  Drusilla 
was  crocheting  lace  with  which,  threaded  with  rib- 
bons, she  ornamented  all  her  underclothing.  It  had 
been  her  habit  for  years  ;  but  the  sight  of  her  thus 
employed  was  suddenly  suggestive  to  her  mother. 
Drusilla  was  not  despairing  of  Michael  Quentin  :  had 
she  some  secret  support  other  than  that  dreadful 
confidence  of  beautiful  women  in  their  youth  ?  .  .  . 
Mrs.  Trathbye's  sick  mind  could  not  bear  her  daugh- 
ter's silence  :  she  must  speak  in  spite  of  her  own 
shame.  After  all,  she  had  a  right  to  speak  :  she 
buttressed  herself  behind  her  motherly  experience. 

"  Dillie,  I  don't  think  you'll  be  wise  to  go  " — she 
spoke  pityingly,  but  the  fear  that  her  daughter's 
happiness  might  come  was  audible,  quivering  in  her 
voice.  ..."  Will  Michael  Quentin  be  there  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  so,"  Drusilla  said,  still  with  that  air  of 
cheerful  surprise.  She  held  up  her  lace,  gazing  at  its 


204          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

white  stars  and  loops ;  then  bent  to  pick  up  Mrs. 
Trathbye's  sewing. 

"  Never  mind,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  irritably. 
Dillie  was  the  only  one  of  the  girls  who  showed  these 
deferences.  "  I  can  bend  as  well  as  you,"  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said  sorely,  looking  at  the  brown  bow,  the 
melting  of  hair  into  the  white  neck,  the  beautiful 
rosy  cheek. 

Drusilla  laughed.  "  Of  course  you  can,  mother." 
She  began  to  sing  :  "  *  I  can  bend  as  well  as  you,  sir, 
as  you,  sir,  as  you,  sir.  I  can  bend  as  well  as  you,  sir, 
ransy- tansy-ting.'  Miss  Morland  gives  us  that  at 
gymnastics,"  she  said  ;  for  she  had  long  ago  confessed 
that  she  attended  Grace's  class  and  the  Trathbye 
family  had  resigned  themselves  to  it. 

It  seemed  to  Mrs.  Trathbye  that  the  girl's  mirth 
must  be  genuine  :  for  the  fever  in  her  own  blood 
prevented  her  from  detecting  the  feverish  note.  She 
felt  a  savage  need  to  struggle  against  her  daughter's 
growing  self-assertiveness  :  a  year  ago  Drusilla  would 
not  have  ventured  to  sparkle  and  sing  in  her  mother's 
presence.  Mrs.  Trathbye  had  always  snubbed  such 
conscious  vivacities  as  "  foolish  "  or  "  forward  "  or 
"  not  nice." 

"  Dillie  ...  I  think  I  ought  to  speak  to  you  about 
this  :  you  know  I've  always  been  very  proud  of  my 
girls'  behaviour.  I've  always  prided  myself  on  no 
daughter  of  mine  ever  doing  anything  common.  .  .  . 
There's  no  worse  mistake  than  for  a  young  girl  to  let 
a  man  think  she  cares  for  him.  Men  make  fun  of 
girls  who  do  things  like  that."  Mrs.  Trathbye's  voice 
was  throaty  with  swelling  excitement.  "  I  didn't 
think  I'd  ever  need  to  be  afraid  of  a  daughter  of  mine 
laying  herself  open  to  remark.  .  .  .  You  needn't  be 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  205 

trying  to  look  innocent  at  me — you  know  what  I  mean. 
...  If  you  let  Michael  Quentin  see  that  you're 
disappointed  at  him  going  away,  I'll  never  be  able  to 
feel  anything  but  ashamed  of  you  again." 

"  Why  should  I  be  disappointed  ?  "  Drusilla  said. 

"  Ah  .  .  .  you  know  you're  disappointed.  I  be- 
lieve you  took  it  into  your  head  he'd  serious  inten- 
tions." Mrs.  Trathbye  laughed  horribly.  "  God  for- 
give you,  you're  so  vain  you  think  it  about  every 
man  that  comes  near  you.  .  .  and  it's  not  the  men 
that  want  you  at  all,  it's  you  that  want  them.  It 
isn't  nice — it  isn't  a  way  any  nice-minded  girl  would 
talk  and  think.  .  .  ." 

"  Talk  ?  "  Drusilla  said,  scornful.  "  When  did  / 
ever  talk  about  men  ?  " 

"  That's  not  a  way  to  speak  to  your  mother,"  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said.  "  You're  the  only  one  of  them  that 
would  speak  to  me  in  such  a  tone.  .  .  .  You  don't  set 
a  very  good  example  to  your  sisters  in  any  way, 
conduct  or  anything  else — and  you  so  much  the 
eldest."  It  was  one  of  her  trivialities,  in  anger,  to 
exaggerate  Drusilla's  age ;  and  she  did  this,  with  an 
irritating  maternal  undeniableness,  in  the  presence  of 
strangers. 

Aunt  Caroline's  latch-key  gurgled  in  the  lock  and 
Mrs.  Trathbye  vented  her  feelings  in  an  outburst  of 
weeping  so  that  her  sister-in-law  might  find  her 
crying.  Drusilla,  leaving  the  room,  knew  just  how 
Mrs.  Trathbye,  questioned,  would  say  faintly  :  "  Oh, 

it's  Dillie "  leaning  her  head  on  one  side,  gasping, 

with  mournful  streaming  face. 

Drusilla  was  burning  and  trembling  with  the  sense 
of  her  outraged  maidenhood.  .  .  .  Her  mother — her 
mother  I  Girls  went  to  their  mothers  to  whisper  things 


206          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

too  fine  for  utterance.  .  .  .  She  could  not  think  of 
Mrs.  Trathbye  as  other  than  the  victim  of  a  mysterious 
disease  :  yet  she  was  beginning  to  fear  her  as  a 
creature  not  blameable,  but  none  the  less  infectious, 
repellent,  and  to  be  avoided.  Drusilla's  heart  turned 
from  the  sight  of  this  madness  of  envy  :  that  it  was 
the  result  of  starved  instincts  and  unused  energies 
made  it  none  the  less  shameful  and  detestable.  She 
remembered  wincingly  her  mother's  previous  attacks  : 
she  thought  she  understood  now  the  terrible  meaning- 
less words  that  had  frightened  her  almost  beyond 
sanity  when  her  mother  had  taken  her  away  from  the 
art  shop.  She  understood  why  she  had  been  suddenly 
removed  from  school,  from  the  master  who  made  a 
favourite  of  her,  putting  his  arm  about  her  waist  and 
stroking  her  hair.  She  remembered  an  extraordinary 
passion  of  rebukes  one  time  in  the  boarding-house 
in  Lamb  Street,  when  a  grey-moustached  man  had 
lifted  the  little  girl  on  to  his  knee  and  she  had  told  that 
he  had  done  it.  ...  She  always  used  to  tell  things 
— that  was  how  she  was  accused  of  being  secretive. 
Even  now  she  had  to  remind  herself  to  keep  silence. 
.  .  .  Essie  could  do  it  quite  easily  ;  she  had  never  let 
her  mother  know  that  the  cashier  had  a  friend. 

In  novels,  girls'  mothers  understood  and  helped 
them.  In  a  novel,  her  mother  would  have  asked 
Michael  Quentin  to  the  house — would  have  been 
jubilant  in  her  joy,  proud  of  the  material  merits  of 
such  a  marriage.  The  German  Socialist  himself  saw 
the  usefulness  of  co-operation  and  solidarity  :  his 
description  of  the  mad  welter  of  competitive  trade 
was  only  a  magnified  account  of  the  continual  little 
struggles  at  the  Trathbyes'  flat. 

It  was  a  struggle  between  her  and  her  mother :   it 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  207 

had  begun  when  her  lips  had  drunk  in  day  by  day 
something  of  her  mother's  life  and  joy,  her  strength 
and  beauty. 

VI 

At  the  Eire  Club  Drusilla  and  Michael  said  good-bye. 

"  May  I  write  to  you  ?  "  Michael  said,  suddenly 
looking  into  her  eyes. 

"  Yes,"  Drusilla  said  happily.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  she  understood  and,  indeed,  for  the  moment 
she  did. 

When  she  got  home  she  went  to  say  good  night  to 
her  mother,  and  told  her  that  Michael  had  asked  if 
he  might  write.  Essie  would  have  kept  silence  :  but 
Drusilla  was  warmly  anxious  to  do  right.  She  was 
full  of  happy  hopes.  Four  months  would  pass  quickly 
when  she  had  Michael's  letters  lying  near  her  heart. 

Mrs.  Trathbye  tried  not  to  ask  to  see  the  first  letter  ; 
but  her  resolution  broke  down  and  she  said  to  her 
daughter,  with  a  brutal  assumption  of  authority  : 

"  Show  me  that  letter." 

Drusilla  showed  it.  It  comforted  Mrs.  Trathbye 
that  the  letter  could  be  truly  described  as  being  one 
that  anybody  might  have  written.  Drusilla  was 
faintly  saddened  by  it :  she  read  it  over  and  over 
again,  trying  to  breathe  warmth  into  it.  She  did  not 
wear  it  over  her  heart,  but  resolved  to  keep  that 
resting-place  for  one  more  familiar  and  fond. 

Other  letters  followed.  Michael  sent  them  at 
respectful  intervals :  he  wrote  them  reverently. 
Often  he  changed  phrases  which  (he  feared)  might 
startle  her  maidenhood  out  of  its  sweet  dreaming- time, 
in  a  misty  atmosphere  suffused  with  the  light  of  love. 
.  .  .  The  poor  fellow  was  not  an  easy  letter-writer ; 


208          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

and  always  behind  his  guarded  words  there  was  his 
conviction  that  her  soul  would  awake  and  understand. 
She  lay  in  her  sleep  sentinelled  by  roses  :  she  must  be 
awakened  only  by  the  touch  of  lips  that  had  prayed 
themselves  into  a  purity  to  equal  hers.  He  would 
expel  everything  vile  and  presumptuous  from  his  acts 
and  words  and  thoughts  :  his  life  would  be  all  an 
oblation — of  faith  in  God,  of  courtesy  to  his  fellows. 
Often  he  checked  the  impulse  to  kiss  the  paper  where 
her  name  was  signed. 

"  Ah,  I  don't  see  any  sense  in  keeping  up  the  cor- 
respondence," Mrs.  Trathbye  said.  "  It's  foolish. 
.  .  .  Just  so  that  people  may  think  you  have  an 
admirer." 

"  Who  ?  The  postman,  Mother  ?  "  Drusilla  said, 
with  her  pretty  tolerant  laugh.  But  her  heart  had 
sunk  ;  it  sank  a  little  lower  at  each  of  these  comments, 
vulgarising  and  doubt-creating.  The  magnetism  of 
Michael's  presence  was  removed  :  the  Eire  Club  had 
become  a  nightmare  of  half-filled  benches  and  clat- 
tering voices  :  it  seemed  to  her  that  Miss  Morland 
looked  gibingly  at  her  when  Michael  was  mentioned ; 
and  at  home  the  materialities  of  life,  the  four  narrow 
walls  and  the  meagre  interests  they  enclosed,  pressed 
ever  more  closely  on  her  heart.  At  the  club  and  at 
home  Alexander  Cowie  bulked  ever  more  largely  in 
her  life,  was  ever  more  importunate  and  more  familiar, 
and — oddly — more  endurable. 

It  was  a  hard  winter  for  the  Trathbyes.  Poor  John, 
in  debt,  wrote  at  Christmas-time,  asking  them  to  lend 
him  as  much  money  as  they  could  scrape  together. 
They  had  been  expecting  John  on  a  visit,  and  this 
substitute  produced  a  miserable  dullness.  Mrs. 
Trathbye  refused  to  buy  any  cakes  or  to  accept  any 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  209 

presents.  They  had  already  bought  materials  for  a 
plum -pudding,  so  they  made  one,  but  as  it  left  the 
cloth  it  seemed  to  have  a  funereal  blackness  instead 
of  the  usual  air  of  jollity,  and  it  split  into  three  under 
the  hands  of  Aunt  Caroline,  who  burst  into  loud  sobs. 
The  morning  post  had  brought  Drusilla  a  Christmas 
greeting  from  Michael  and  a  slender  volume  of  Francis 
Thompson  :  she  had  hardly  dared  to  show  it,  it 
seemed  such  a  bright  thing  in  the  general  gloom.  .  .  . 
And  another  postman  rang,  presenting  a  cake  for 
Mrs.  Trathbye  and  a  box  of  gloves  for  Drusilla. 
Alexander  Cowie's  card  lay  in  each  box. 

"  Ten  times  the  price  of  anything  you  ever  got  from 
Michael  Quentin,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said,  laughing, 
wiled  into  cheerfulness  by  the  complimentary  cake. 
The  words  and  the  look  that  went  with  them  remained 
with  Drusilla.  It  was  amazing  to  her  that  her  mother 
should  be  able  to  think  of  Cowie  seriously  as  a  suitor  : 
it  made  her  angry.  The  expression  fleeting  across 
Mrs.  Trathbye's  eyes  confessed  :  "  I  spoiled  your 
chance  with  Michael  Quentin — I'm  still  trying  to 
spoil  it.  I  can't  help  it,  I  feel  sorry  and  I'm  offering 
you  Alick  Cowie  as  indemnity." 

"  He'd  no  right  to  send  me  these,"  Drusilla  said, 
flushed.  "  Mother,  should  I  send  them  back  ?  " 

Mrs.  Trathbye  made  a  mocking  face. 

"  Little  Miss  Propriety !  "  she  simpered.  "  If 
you're  too  proud  to  wear  them  yourself  give  them  to 
Kathleen." 

It  was  bewildering.  But  Drusilla  divined  that  the 
first  sign  on  her  part  of  favouring  Cowie  would  be 
the  signal  for  her  mother's  opposition.  Cowie  came 
up  the  next  day,  offering  tickets  for  a  dance  ;  and  she 
thanked  him  gently  for  the  gloves  but  refused  to 

o 


210          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

accept  any  other  gift  from  him  or  to  accompany  him 
to  the  dance. 

"  Of  course  we  don't  go  to  dances  with  young  men  !  " 
she  said,  laughing. 

Cowie  looked  at  her  admiringly.  It  was  desolating 
to  realise  that  she  had  only  made  him  esteem  her  the 
more.  She  was  such  a  "  ladylike  girl." 

''  When  are  you  going  to  give  me  the  right  to  take 
you  to  dances  ?  "  Cowie  said,  after  he  had  arranged 
to  take  "  wee  Aggie  "  instead. 

"  I  can't  ever  do  that,  Mr.  Cowie,"  Drusilla  said  very 
earnestly.  But  Cowie  looked  at  her  with  a  laugh  in 
those  strange  frivolous  eyes  of  his  and  went  away 
unbelieving. 

It  was  abominable  to  have  to  go  about,  with  Essie 
and  Kathleen,  or  with  the  neighbour's  daughter,  Amy 
Cartwright,  and  to  gaze  at  the  charming  things  in  the 
shop-windows  and  not  have  a  penny  to  buy  anything. 
Essie  expressed  herself  "  fed  up  "  with  the  whole 
thing  :  she  was  never  again  going  to  try  to  save  money, 
for  it  meant  nothing  but  denying  herself  things  that 
she  wanted  so  that  her  mother  might  take  the  money 
and  give  it  to  John. 

"  To  pay  his  bills  at  the  inn  and  his  losses  at  cards  !  " 
Essie  said.  Aunt  Caroline  and  Mrs.  Trathbye  had 
said  a  great  deal  about  warm  clothing  for  the  winter. 
The  state  of  John's  socks  had  been  dwelt  upon  as 
specially  lamentable  :  yet  it  seemed  unlikely  that  he 
should  want  forty  pounds  for  socks.  .  .  . 

Hearing  this  outburst  of  Essie's,  as  they  stood  in 
front  of  a  charming  shop-window  in  Sauchiehall 
Street,  Drusilla  marvelled  anew  at  her  sister's  dis- 
cretion. Essie  seemed  to  know  how  to  avoid  direct 
discussion  with  her  mother  and  aunt :  her  point  of 


THE  %HAPPY   WARRIOR  211 

view  must  be  much  as  theirs — except  in  this  matter 
of  John.  It  was  not  possible  to  make  Essie  speak  of 
a  thing  like  a  love-affair.  Up  till  a  few  months  ago, 
she  had  shown  a  phlegmatic  version  of  her  mother's 
dislike  to  speech  on  the  subject.  Now,  Drusilla 
wondered — glancing  at  her  sister's  dull  face — what 
thoughts  the  shop-windows  were  stirring  in  her  heart. 

"  It's  funny  the  way  women  feel  about  men," 
Drusilla  said.  "  I  believe  mother  and  Aunt  Carlie 
would  sacrifice  anything  to  John  just  because  he's  a 
man." 

Essie's  face  assumed  its  forbidding  look  of  caution, 
and  she  passed  on  without  replying.  The  next  win- 
dow was  full  of  rose-coloured  silks  and  ribbons. 

"Aren't  they  lovely?"  Drusilla  sighed.  "I'd 
like  to  have  twenty  pounds  of  my  own  and  to  buy  and 
buy —  She  was  suddenly  aware  that  Essie  had 

moved  so  that  the  mirror  at  the  back  of  the  window 
might  not  reflect  them  side  by  side.  And  with  her 
consciousness  of  this  Drusilla's  heart  contracted  with 
a  painful  sense  of  loneliness  :  she  wanted  to  feel  in 
sympathy  with  Essie. 

"  You're  not  likely  either  to  get  or  to  make  twenty 
pounds,"  Essie  said  morosely,  and  they  went  home 
empty-handed.  Drusilla  in  her  bedroom  opened  her 
glove-box  and  gazed  at  the  grey  kids,  so  soft  and 
sweetly  scented.  Cowie's  ability  to  buy  such  things 
seemed  to  refine  him  into  a  state  of  less  commonness. 
It  was  one  of  those  prettinesses,  those  little  decencies, 
necessary  to  make  tolerable  a  relationship  with  a  man 
like  Cowie  :  it  was  like  the  distance  at  which  he  stood 
from  her,  the  whiteness  of  collar  and  glossiness  of  boots 
which  marked  his  aspect  when  he  came  into  her 
presence.  ...  It  was  laugh-enkindling  to  picture 


212          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

Cowie  with  hair  disordered  like  Michael  Quentin's. 
That  yellow-brown  lock — coloured  just  like  sea-wrack 
— falling  on  the  pure  forehead.  .  .  . 

Drusilla  put  away  the  gloves  :  she  found  them 
smug  and  abhorrent  and  thought  that  she  would 
never  wear  them.  But  Cowie  came  on  New  Year's 
Eve  with  tickets  for  "  The  Messiah "  to  be  per- 
formed next  day  in  St.  Andrew's  Hall.  Drusilla 
could  not  deny  herself  this  joy  :  she  loved  music  and 
lived  among  people  who  considered  the  emotionalism 
produced  by  it  to  be  an  evidence  of  refinement :  the 
house  was  terribly  dismal,  with  Aunt  Caroline  again 
moping  in  bed  and  Mrs.  Trathbye  crying  over  John's 
photograph.  How  Cowie' s  eyes  twinkled  when 
Drusilla  said  :  "  I'll  come."  She  wore  a  pair  of  the 
gloves  and  blushed  when  he  smiled  at  them. 

The  appeal  of  the  glorious  music,  in  the  dimness  of 
the  big  hall,  electric-lit  and  foggy,  was  more  potent 
and  more  insidious  than  the  appeal  of  the  soft,  sweetly 
smelling  little  gloves.  Drusilla  had  often  heard  that 
music  ministered  to  one's  higher  nature  :  she  thought 
of  the  starvation  of  the  higher  nature  in  a  life  without 
concerts,  theatres,  and  picture-galleries.  She  looked 
at  the  women  all  around  her  and  wondered  if  they 
always  had  as  much  joy  and  culture  as  they  needed, 
and  men  to  escort  them  here  and  there  in  taxicabs, 
to  draw  their  coats  over  their  shoulders  and  pick  up 
things  that  they  dropped.  There  was  something 
alluring  in  a  man's  mere  physical  courtesies  to  a 
woman. 

The  mingling  sounds  of  the  instruments  and  the 
confusion  of  feelings  they  induced  sank  into  a  murmur 
of  expectancy ;  and  the  voice  of  the  great  soprano 
rose,  like  the  voice  of  love  over  the  struggle  of  emotions 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  213 

in  a  human  life ;  a  clear  voice,  passionate,  pure, 
single-hearted,  audaciously  glad  and  confident. 

"  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth  .  .  ." 

"  Glorious,  isn't  she  ?  "  Cowie  said,  at  the  end  of 
the  solo,  moved  by  Drusilla's  emotion.  ..."  It's  a 
pity  these  singers  get  so  fat  .  .  .  wouldn't  need  to 
mind  with  a  voice  like  that."  He  laughed  tremu- 
lously, colouring. 

Drusilla  laughed  too,  senselessly,  as  she  hurriedly 
dried  the  tears  off  her  cheeks.  She  was  saying  to 
herself,  as  a  prayer,  that  she  would  have  faith  in  love. 
That  divine  soaring  voice,  rising  from  the  welter  of 
sounds  cried  :  "  I  know  !  " 

"  Won't  you  come  and  have  some  tea  ?  "  Cowie  said 
shyly,  on  the  steps.  She  hesitated,  then  acquiesced, 
doubtful  if  it  would  be  quite  a  "  nice  "  thing.  Cowie 
put  his  arm  about  her  and  guided  her  through  the 
red-brown  fog  in  which  flared  orange  and  white  and 
scarlet  lamps. 

They  parted  at  the  Trathbyes'  door,  for,  hear- 
ing of  Aunt  Caroline's  illness,  Cowie  refused  to 
go  in. 

"  I  hope  I  may  come  up — and  ask  how  your  aunt 
is  ?  "  he  said,  with  an  arch  laugh.  Drusilla  had 
laughed  too  before  she  was  aware  of  it ;  and  suddenly 
Cowie  had  caught  both  her  gloved  hands,  pressing 
them  against  his  chest,  kissing  them. 

"Don't,"  Drusilla  gasped.  "Let  go.  ...  No, 
don't,  please."  She  got  into  the  house  and  shut  the 
door,  disregarding  something  that  Cowie  was  saying 
through  the  letter-box. 

"  I  was  a  fool  to  go,"  she  said  to  herself  passion- 
ately. "  He  cares  more  than  I  thought."  There 
was  something  frightening  in  Cowie's  bodily  strength 


214          THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

—in  the  fact  that  he  could  hold  her  so  that  she  could 
not  escape.  And  his  eyes  held  something  that 
frightened  her  too — a  dominance,  a  sureness  that  took 
no  account  of  her  denials.  .  .  .  Oh,  it  was  the  con- 
fidence of  a  little  life,  ignorant  of  all  forces  outside  its 
own  boundaries  :  not  the  superb  sureness  of  a  soul 
that  knew  God  ! 

"  But  I  shouldn't  have  gone  with  him,"  Drusilla 
said.  "  Poor  fellow,  he  cares  a  great  deal  in  his  own 
way — and  it  isn't  right." 

"  We've  had  to  send  for  the  doctor  for  your  aunt," 
Mrs.  Trathbye  said,  with  a  reproachful  air,  as  her 
daughter  entered  the  kitchen.  "  I  was  quite  alarmed 
by  the  state  she  was  in  and  I  alone  in  the  house  with 
her  at  the  time.  No,  of  course,  you  can't  do  anything 
now  :  Essie  and  Kathleen  have  been  back  for  hours 
now  and  we  have  done  everything  there  was  to  do. 
Upon  my  word,  I  thought  your  aunt  was  dying  :  she 
became  perfectly  livid  and  as  cold  as  this  knife  I'm 
holding  in  my  hand.  .  .  ." 

Aunt  Caroline  had  a  long  illness  ;  and  in  the  middle 
of  it  there  came  a  letter  from  an  Edinburgh  editor  to 
whom  Michael's  uncle  had  written  some  months  ago. 
The  editor  stated  that  he  had  a  vacancy  on  his  staff 
and  would  be  glad  if  Miss  Trathbye  would  send  in  an 
application. 

Aunt  Caroline  wept  piteously.  It  was  a  situation 
beyond  her  hopes,  involving  little  writing  but  a  good 
deal  of  going  about  to  "  functions  "  ;  and  she  could 
not  leave  her  bed  and  would  not  be  fit  for  work  for  at 
least  six  months. 

"  Ah,  isn't  it  strange  ?  Isn't  it  a  strange  thing  ?  " 
Mrs.  Trathbye  repeated  with  a  gloomy  delight. 
"  Nothing  ever  goes  right  with  a  Trathbye — nor  with 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  215 

my  own  family  either.  .  .  .  We  might  have  known 
it  would  happen  this  way  with  a  Trathbye." 

Aunt  Caroline,  comforted  by  a  sense  of  a  great 
tragic  destiny,  resigned  herself.  She  was  drinking  a 
cup  of  tea,  and  lay  back  among  her  pillows,  looking  so 
meagre  and  frail  that  it  seemed  hardly  likely  that  a 
full-grown  curse  would  find  it  worth  while  to  pursue 
her. 

Drusilla  flushed  vividly  at  the  thought  that  came 
to  her.  The  wish  to  make  money  was  growing  stronger 
and  saner  in  her  :  she  was  impatient  of  the  Trathbye 
hopelessness  in  herself  and  in  the  others.  She  wanted 
so  many  things  that  she  could  not  have — why  shouldn't 
she  work  for  them  as  other  people  did  ?  In  the  deeps 
of  her  heart  there  stirred  a  dim  fear  of  the  moods 
created  in  herself  by  those  ungratified  desires ; 
reckless  moods  in  which  a  weak  heart  was  tempted  to 
do  vile  things  ;  in  which  one's  very  longing  for  good 
was  debased  into  an  instrument  of  evil.  .  .  . 

The  fear  of  these  passions  was  stronger  now  than 
the  fear  of  her  mother.  There  must  be  some  under- 
standing, some  pity  for  her  somewhere  in  her  mother's 
heart !  A  woman  could  not  refuse  to  help  her  own 
daughter  to  be  good. 

"  Mother,  couldn't  I  go  in  for  that  situation  ?  " 
Drusilla  asked,  deprecating.  "  Just  to  keep  it  till 
Aunt  Garlic's  able  to  work  ?  " 

But  Aunt  Caroline,  questioned,  broke  into  envious 
rage  and  terror.  What  right  had  Drusilla  to  take  her 
work  away  from  her  ?  Let  Drusilla  find  an  editor  for 
herself  and  not  be  trying  to  steal  other  people's  only 
means  of  keeping  body  and  soul  together.  .  .  .  The 
poor  creature's  passion  was  such  and  so  consciously 
supported  by  her  condition  of  weakness,  that  Mrs. 


216          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

Trathbye,  at  first  not  unwilling  to  consider  her 
daughter's  idea,  yielded  with  a  :  "  We'd  better  say 
no  more  about  it."  It  seemed  a  pity  to  let  this  sorely 
needed  salary  slip  from  their  grasp  ;  but  Mrs.  Trathbye 
had  fallen  into  a  state  of  mental  indolence  to  which  a 
continued  submission  to  wants  and  cares  was  easier 
than  initiative.  .  .  .  She  had  had  besides  a  disquieting 
vision  of  Drusilla  at  functions  in  frocks  and  hats 
which  her  profession  would  justify. 

"  It's  insane  !  "  the  respected  Essie  said  to  her 
mother.  But  Aunt  Caroline's  state  of  health  fortified 
her  against  all  attempts  at  remonstrance.  She  hid 
the  editor's  letter  in  the  fear  that  her  niece  might  get 
the  address  and  write  on  her  own  behalf. 

Drusilla  bought  newspapers  and  began  to  answer 
advertisements.  She  would  go  into  a  shop — into  an 
office  as  a  beginner.  After  all  she  was  not  twenty-five 
and,  with  her  hair  in  a  bow,  could  easily  pass  as  sixteen. 
She  got  no  answer  to  her  first  twenty  letters  :  the 
twenty-first  brought  a  post  card  asking  her  to  call  at 
an  office. 

"  Ah,  you'll  make  nothing  of  it,  child,"  Mrs. 
Trathbye  said.  It  was  a  wet  day  and  Drusilla  put  on 
an  old  short  skirt  under  her  coat  and  dressed  her  hair 
in  a  ribbon-bowed  loop  so  that  she  could  let  it  down 
as  she  went  up  the  stairs  to  the  office.  The  amiable 
man  looked  at  her. 

"  You're  too  young,  I'm  afraid,"  he  said  pleasantly. 
"  We  want  a  young  lady  of  three-and-twenty  or  so." 

The  second  time  that  she  received  a  card  asking  her 
to  call  Drusilla  put  on  a  long  skirt  and  dressed  her 
hah*  high  :  she  saw  a  woman  who  said  that  they 
wanted  a  girl  of  fourteen.  She  received  no  more 
replies  to  her  unbusinesslike  letters. 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  217 

VII 

At  the  beginning  of  February  Essie  came  home  one 
evening  with  a  desperate  face  and  told  her  mother, 
shortly,  that  the  business  had  failed  and  all  the  girls 
must  go.  She  turned  with  a  sullen  disgust  from  her 
mother's  exclamations  of  wrath  at  the  injustice. 
"  What's  the  good  of  talking  ?  "  she  said  ;  and  she 
recommenced  the  search  for  a  situation,  reading  the 
long  columns  of  The  Mercury  and  The  Western  World  ; 
trudging  here  and  there,  downcast,  silent,  morose. 
One  night  in  the  bedroom  Brasilia  looked  at  Essie 
undressing  and  saw  tears  slipping  over  her  cheeks, 
and  marvelled  at  her  mother's  blindness  to  the 
existence  of  the  cashier's  friend. 

"  Essie,"  she  said,  when  they  were  in  bed  in  the 
dark,  "  do  you  ever  see  Mortlake  now  ?  " 

She  feared  a  rebuff ;  but  Essie  answered  in  a  voice 
that  quivered  : 

"  No.  .  .  .  How  could  I  ?  He  just  used  to  come  up 
to  see  Bramley." 

"  I  know.  .  .  .  But  couldn't  you  see  him  somehow  ? 
I  mean,  you  wouldn't  need  to  let  him  know  you  had 
done  anything.  Isn't  there  any  way  you  might  meet 
him  again  ?  It  seems  such  a  pity  to  break  off  what 
might  ...  be  a  nice  friendship." 

"  How  could  I  ?  "  Essie  said.  A  tinge  of  hope  came 
into  her  voice  :  "  Some  of  the  girls  do  things  like  that. 
...  I  don't  see  how  I  could  :  it  wouldn't  be  nice." 

"  Oh,  nice  !  "  Brasilia  blazed  out.  "  You  don't 
know  what  it  might  come  to  mean  to  you  or  to  him. 
Why  shouldn't  you  do  it  whether  it's  nice  or  not  ?  " 

"  There's  no  sense  in  talking  like  that,"  Essie  said 
with  a  cold  disapproval ;  and  she  sank  back  into  that 


218          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

respectable,  hopeless,  mysterious  apathy  in  which 
most  of  her  life  had  been  spent. 

They  had  not  enough  of  money  to  pay  the  doctor 
and  to  buy  food.  Kathleen,  the  only  worker,  came 
and  went  with  a  silent,  noble  patience  :  the  crimson 
had  gone  out  of  her  cheeks  and  the  family  no  longer 
jested  about  her  plumpness.  They  had  outbursts  of 
tenderness  to  each  other ;  outbursts  of  bitterness  in 
which  they  said  horrible  things  that  burned  their 
hearts,  followed  by  foolish  weeping  reconciliations. 
Aunt  Caroline,  since  the  newspaper  episode,  could  not 
bear  the  presence  of  Drusilla  :  at  the  sight  of  the  girl 
the  sick  woman  would  sometimes  spring  madly  from 
her  bed  and  rush  from  the  room,  slamming  the  door. 
Drusilla  often  imagined  Aunt  Caroline,  gone  mad, 
attacking  her  with  a  knife  and  killing  her.  Once  she 
pictured  Aunt  Caroline  dead,  having  killed  herself; 
and  thence  she  passed  easily  to  the  thought  of  Aunt 
Caroline  dying  of  this  illness — a  result  which  Mrs. 
Trathbye  frequently  prophesied. 

It  was  unthinkably  terrible  that  she  should  find 
relief  in  the  thought  of  Aunt  Caroline  dead  ;  in  the 
closing  of  the  cruel,  stupid,  hostile  eyes,  the  silencing 
of  the  coarsened  yet  attenuated  voice,  with  its  phrases 
of  tenement  slang,  the  debased  vocabulary  produced  by 
years  of  intercourse  with  washerwomen,  charwomen, 
dealers  in  old  clothes,  and  tradespeople. 

It  was  a  hideous  thought :  it  frightened  Drusilla. 
She  found  herself  arguing  that,  since  such  ugly  ideas 
were  the  products  of  material  miseries,  almost  any 
means  of  escaping  from  wretched  material  conditions 
were  justifiable.  Then  she  wondered  what  fiend  had 
been  sent  with  this  thought  to  tempt  her  to  cast 
herself  down. 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  219 

She  would  get  work  and  save  herself — from  what  ? 
She  conceived  the  idea  of  going  back  to  the  art  shop 
and  asking  them  to  help  her.  It  was  three  years  since 
she  had  left  it,  but  she  felt  a  warm  sense  of  encourage- 
ment at  her  heart  as  she  recalled  the  manager's  kind 
eyes. 

She  went,  and  found  a  new  manageress  and  two 
very  smart,  staring  assistants.  The  lame  young  man 
was  dead,  they  told  her,  and  the  manager  had  gone  to 
a  branch  at  Manchester.  The  manageress  took  down 
her  name  and  address  and  Drusilla  went  out,  feeling 
that  the  assistants  were  staring  at  her  down-trodden 
boots  and  faded  skirt. 

It  was  very  foggy  and  the  night  was  closing  in. 
She  had  no  money  for  the  car,  and  her  worn  boots, 
jarring  on  the  pavement,  hurt  her  feet  and  exhausted 
her  nerves.  When  she  reached  Jamaica  Bridge  she 
paused,  partly  because  she  was  annoyed  by  the  dodging 
on  the  footpath  ;  and  looked  over  the  granite  parapet. 
The  foggy  river  had  a  weird  effect  of  an  unplumbed 
pit  of  darkness  :  it  was  solemn,  almost  shuddersome, 
yet  it  had  a  suggestion  of  restfulness.  Death,  she 
thought,  must  be  like  that  black  peacefulness  under 
the  struggling  lives  on  the  bridge. 

"  Miss  Trathbye,"  Cowie  said.  "  Not  thinking  of 
suicide  ?  " 

Drusilla  turned.  It  seemed  to  her  a  long  time  since 
she  had  thought  of  Alick  Cowie,  or  of  Grace  Morland, 
or  Patullo.  She  had  thought  often  of  Michael  Quentin 
and  her  realisations  of  the  miseries  of  physical  life  : 
but  she  could  not  write  to  Michael  often  because  it  was 
so  difficult  to  get  twopence  halfpenny  for  a  stamp  ; 
and  Michael  always  waited  for  her  letter  before  he 
wrote  again.  The  thought  of  him  in  Athens  or  Rome, 


220          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

or  in  his  beautiful  house  on  the  Ayrshire  coast,  was 
becoming  again  a  fairy-tale,  a  bright  dream-thing 
which  had  no  obvious  link  with  her  daily  life.  .  .  . 
She  did  not  know  herself  how  much  of  this  was  owing 
to  physical  exhaustion.  She  had  always  accepted 
her  beauty  and  vitality  as  signs  of  a  strength  that 
could  resist  what  the  German  Socialist  called  "  un- 
favourable conditions  "  to  which  others  must  succumb. 

"  Come  along  and  have  some  tea,"  Cowie  said 
familiarly. 

"  I  knew  you  were  going  to  say  that,"  Drusilla 
laughed,  with  a  pleasant  famishing  thought  of  a  cosy 
room,  of  cakes  and  tea,  of  a  drive  home  in  a  car. 

"  Why,  you're  walking  lame,  Miss  Trathbye !  " 
Cowie  said.  "  What  is  it  ?  Acorn?  Or  chilblains  ?" 

"  I  don't  get  chilblains,"  Drusilla  said,  disgusted. 
Cowie  had  a  lower  middle-class  habit  of  talking  about 
diseases.  "  It's  my  shoe  that's  hurting  me,"  she 
added  gently,  fearing  she  had  been  unkind. 

Cowie  looked  down  quickly,  and  she  felt  that  his 
eyes — alert  to  observe  obvious  things — had  noted  the 
dismal  condition  of  her  feet.  They  went  towards 
Burrow's  tea-rooms  in  Union  Street,  Cowie  eagerly 
making  a  way  for  Drusilla  through  the  crowd. 

"  Reminds  you  of  New  Year's  Day  and  '  The 
Messiah,'  "  Cowie  said.  "  First  of  January — im-him  ! 
im-him  ! — and  it's  two  days  from  the  end  of  February 
now.  Tempus  has  been  fugiting  at  a  fine  rate — 
hasn't  the  old  boy  ?  You  haven't  been  along  to  the 
Eire  lately  ?  " 

"  No,"  Drusilla  said.  "  I've  missed  all  the  meet- 
ings since  Christmas.  I've  been  busy  .  .  ." 

Cowie  shot  a  jealous  glance  at  her  and  her  pride 
was  relieved.  To  be  suspected  of  "  going  with " 


THE  HAPPY  WARRIOR  221 

another  young  man  was  much  more  gratifying  than 
to  be  pitied  for  the  want  of  inspectable  coats  and  hats. 

"  Aunt  Caroline's  been  so  ill  ...  "  Drusilla  offered. 

"  Of  course,"  Cowie  said,  brightening.  Suddenly 
his  face  was  solemn  and  he  thrust  out  an  arm  so 
ostentatiously  protective  and  possessive  that  Drusilla, 
affronted,  slid  from  its  contact. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  Cowie  said.  "  Did  I  annoy 
you  ?  .  .  .  I  didn't  want  that  woman  to  touch  you." 

Drusilla  looked  at  the  woman,  who  seemed  young, 
with  a  face  of  curiously  porcelain-like  complexion 
between  her  big  black  hat  and  black  furs.  It  did  not 
seem  to  be  strange  that  Cowie  should  have  known  at 
once  that  the  woman  was  untouchable  :  the  know- 
ledge was  harmonious  with  his  manliness,  his  air  of 
citizenship  and  responsibility.  This  time  his  pro- 
tectiveness  brought  no  feeling  of  offence  but  a  rather 
pleasant  thrill. 

"  Do  you  think  these  women  are  to  blame  ?  " 
Drusilla  asked,  remembering  the  things  that  she  had 
read  in  Miss  Morland's  Socialist  and  Suffrage  pamph- 
lets. "  They  are  often  driven  to  it  by  want,  aren't 
they  ?  Because  they  get  such  poor  wages." 

"  That  is  so,  no  doubt,"  said  Cowie,  approving  her 
broadness  of  view.  "  There  aren't  two  doubts  it's 
men  that  are  most  to  blame  in  this  business.  Mind 
you,  I  think  these  Militant  Suffragettes  go  too  far  in 
the  things  they  say  as  well  as  the  things  they  do  :  but 
there's  a  lot  of  truth  in  some  of  their  complaints  about 
the  economic  position  of  women.  Personally,  I  don't 
approve  of  women  being  in  the  market  as  competitors 
to  men  at  all." 

"  But  they  have  to  earn  wages  ?  " 

Cowie  smiled  at  her  indulgently. 


222          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

"  There's  only  one  ideal  career  for  a  woman,"  he 
said  ;  "  and  that's  to  take  care  of  a  husband  and 
children."  He  piloted  her  through  Burrow's  tiled 
shop  into  the  pretty  tea-room  behind. 

"  But  there  are  more  women  than  men  ?  "  Drusilla 
said,  with  her  woeful  puzzled  air,  as  she  sank  down 
into  the  cushioned  seat. 

Cowie  smiled  again,  staring  at  the  parted  lips  and 
wide  serious  eyes.  He  did  not  hear  what  she  said, 
nor  attempt  to  answer  it. 

Drusilla  was  slowly  pulling  off  a  pair  of  the  gloves 
that  he  had  given  her  ....  In  the  market !  She 
remembered  that  the  German  Socialist  had  spoken  of 
women's  beauty  as  "  capital."  It  seemed  not  difficult 
to  understand  how  a  girl  who  was  cold  and  hungry 
and  in  fear  of  the  destruction  of  her  good  looks  and  the 
atrophying  of  her  power  to  enjoy,  might — in  a  reckless 
mood — sell  herself  to  a  man  who  was  not  abhorrent 
to  her.  She  might  do  it  to  hear  music  to  keep  her 
higher  nature  alive  and  to  have  pretty  things  for  the 
salvation  of  her  refinement.  When  a  girl  did  that 
without  being  married  people  said  that  she  had 
committed  a  great  sin — and  she  had,  in  spite  of  all  the 
scientific  Socialists  in  the  universe  !  .  .  .  Yet  it  was 
strange  that  when,  with  just  the  same  motives,  she 
married  the  man  .  .  . 

**  Pretty  room,  isn't  it  ? "  Cowie's  voice  came. 
"  What'll  you  have  ?  Tea,"  he  said  pleasantly  to  the 
waitress,  "  and  some  cream  cakes  and  sandwiches." 

Drusilla  had  eaten  nothing  since  one  o'clock,  when 
she  had  lunched  on  fried  potatoes,  dry  bread,  and 
cocoa.  It  was  delightful  to  feel  that  Cowie  was 
grateful  to  her  for  every  sandwich  or  cake  that  she 
ate  ;  for  during  the  last  month  the  Trathbyes  had 


THE   HAPPY   WARRIOR  223 

fallen  into  a  ghastly  habit  of  watching  each  other  eat. 
Drusilla,  as  the  meal  went  on,  was  more  and  more 
happily  conscious  of  the  contrast  between  it  and  tea 
at  home.  The  room  was  so  pretty,  so  dainty  and 
warm,  with  its  firelight,  its  shaded  lamps,  its  flowers, 
its  discreet  sinking  of  the  commercial  in  the  social 
aspect.  There  were  gay  groups  and  couples  at  the 
tables  ;  and  Cowie  was  engagingly  merry,  pretending 
to  think  that  the  currants  in  the  cakes  were  dead 
flies  and  saying  :  "  Good-bye  "  to  Drusilla  when  she 
accepted  a  three-storied  confection,  mosaicked  with 
green  and  pink.  Even  that  curious  middle-aged 
pompousness  and  lack  of  enthusiasm  which  appeared 
every  now  and  then  in  the  midst  of  his  boyish  glee, 
was  on  this  occasion  not  unpleasing  to  Drusilla.  It 
gave  her  the  feeling  that  he  was  so  much  more  re- 
sponsible than  she,  that  he  knew  so  much  better 
what  they  were  both  doing,  that  she  could  not  blame 
herself  for  any  rash  semblance  of  "  encouraging  "  him. 

"  I  want  to  ask  you  again,"  Cowie  murmured 
suddenly  in  the  close  leading  to  the  Trathbyes'  house  : 
it  was  a  well  of  red-brown  darkness,  for  the  fog  filled 
it  and  something  had  gone  wrong  with  the  gaslight. 
"  No,  not  just  the  same  question,"  Cowie  said, 
laughing  tenderly,  pressing  close  to  her  in  the  darkness. 

"...  I  want  you  to  take  a  fortnight  to  think.  This 
is  the  26th  of  February — take  till  the  13th  of  March. 
Yes,  you  will  ?  " 

Cowie  had  gone,  taking  it  for  granted.  At  night, 
Drusilla  said  to  Essie,  tentatively : 

"  Alick  Cowie  met  me  in  town  :  he  took  me  to  tea 
at  Burrow's." 

Essie  was  tying  up  her  brown  hair,  to  the  brushing 
of  which  she  had  again  become  indifferent. 


224          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  Is  anything  going  to  come  of  it  ?  "  she  asked 
stolidly,  with  averted  eyes. 

"  Come  of  it  ?  "  Drusilla  said  stupidly,  startled  into 
disingenuousness. 

"  Yes.  If  he  asks  you,  are  you  going  to  take  him  ? 
...  I  would  if  I  were  you." 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  can  expect  ..."  Drusilla 
murmured,  wounded  :  but  Essie  went  on,  with  a  kind 
of  dull  passion  : 

"  There's  nothing  wrong  with  him  :  he's  a  good 
fellow,  and  good-looking ;  and  he's  a  doctor  if  his 
people  are  common :  a  doctor's  the  social  equal  of 
anybody.  .  .  .  And  he's  going  up  in  his  profession. 
.  .  .  We're  not  likely,  any  of  us,  to  get  many  chances. 
Mother  doesn't  do  like  other  people's  mothers.  .  .  . 
And  if  we  don't  get  married  what's  to  become  of  us  ? 
— especially  poor  you  when  you  haven't  ever  done 
anything.  You're  the  only  one  of  us  that's  likely  to 
have  such  a  good  chance." 

It  was  this  admission,  more  than  anything  else, 
that  impressed  Drusilla  with  a  sense  of  crisis  :  Essie's 
acknowledgment  of  her  sister's  attractiveness  was  like 
the  laying  bare  of  some  long-known  but  unmentioned 
family  fact — like  the  inscribing  of  a  dead  person's  age 
on  a  tombstone  or  the  appearance  at  a  wedding  of  at 
other  times  invisible  uncles. 

"  Don't  you  think  you  should  care  ?  .  .  .  Don't 
you  think  you  should  feel  you  couldn't  live  without  the 
man  .  .  .  ?  "  Drusilla  faltered,  in  face  of  that  great 
negative  weight  of  things  left  out  of  her  sister's  life. 

"  I  think  you  should  care  for  your  own  people," 
Essie  said,  obstinately  looking  away.  "  What  do 
people  mean  by  falling  in  love  ?  You  get  to  care  for 
any  nice  man,  just  because  he's  a  man,  if  he's  good  to 


THE   HAPPY   WARRIOR  225 

you.  I  think  you  must  get  to  be  grateful  to  him  for 
marrying  you." 

Brasilia  muttered  an  "  Oh  !  "  of  revolted  scorn  : 
but  Essie  went  on  with  her  bitter  conviction  of  her 
own  good  sense  and  the  absurdity  of  all  other  points 
of  view. 

"  I  don't  see  what  else  you  can  do.  You  said  you 
wanted  to  help  .  .  .  and  it  would  make  a  big  differ- 
ence :  not  just  in  the  food  here,  but  to  Kathleen  and 
me.  When  you've  a  married  sister  with  a  house, 
you've  got  chances  .  .  .  and  you're  the  good-looking 
one  and  the  eldest.  .  .  .  Mother'll  never  help  us  that 
way.  ...  I  know  I'd  do  it  if  I  were  you." 

They  put  out  the  light  and  lay  down  on  their  beds 
and  Essie  slept.  How  old  she  seemed  to  Brasilia, 
how  awful !  She  represented  the  great  trivial  pas- 
sive pressing  force  of  material  things ;  weighing 
on  the  soul,  bearing  it  down,  uncomprehendingly 
stifling  it. 

Brasilia  said  to  herself  that  she  would  write  to 
Michael,  she  would  tell  him  the  truth,  she  would  cry 
to  him  to  save  her,  as  she  used  to  call  to  God  :  she 
would  not  let  custom  kill  her  soul. 

But  daylight  snapped  the  link  between  the  dream 
world  and  physical  life.  She  could  not  beg  to  Michael : 
no  nice  girl  could  tell  her  wants  unasked.  It  was 
Michael  who  was  to  blame  :  the  pain  in  her  heart 
blazed  into  anger  :  he  had  gone  away,  he  had  written 
inexpressive  letters  :  everybody  said  that  he  could  not 
care.  .  .  .  Would  an  act  of  defiance  bring  Michael 
back  ?  An  engaged  girl  was  not  married. 

On  the  fifteenth  of  March  Miss  Morland,  in  a  long, 
crossed,  muddled  letter  to  Michael,  wrote  skittishly : 

p 


226          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

"  We  have  actually  an  engagement  to  announce  at 
the  Eire  !  Little  Dillie  Trathbye  and  Alick  Cowie  !  ! 
Everybody  expected  it  would  have  been  sooner  as  it 
was  easy  to  see  it  was  a  case.  Alick  is  getting  on 
very  well  so  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not 
be  married  soon.  ." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   WHITE  STUDIO 
I 

COWIE  walked  up  a  plaster- smudged  board,  and 
through  a  doorless  doorway  on  the  ground  floor  of  an 
unfinished  tenement  in  a  southern  suburb.  The  place, 
full  of  May  sunshine,  was  blithe  as  a  bird-haunted 
coppice  with  the  whistling  and  singing  of  workmen. 

Cowie  was  whistling  too,  and  his  eyes  were  happy 
as  he  considered  the  four  little  rooms  in  the  ground- 
floor  flat.  From  the  front  windows  there  was  a 
delightful  view  of  a  common  which  Cowie  called  a 
"  park  "  ;  and  from  the  back  windows  could  be  seen 
a  sloping  piece  of  waste  ground,  drab  on  its  bare 
patches,  and  intensely  green  where  grasses  and  haw- 
thorn-bushes were.  At  the  foot  of  this  slope  the  river 
Cart  gleamed  between  clayey  banks. 

There  were  no  doors  in  the  little  flat  and  no  windows, 
and  there  was  a  rubbled  hole  where  the  kitchen  range 
was  to  glow.  But  it  was  easy  for  Cowie's  warm  glad 
heart  to  fill  the  place  with  warmth  and  joyaunce. 
The  white,  empty  rooms,  with  their  raw  odours  of 
plaster  and  wood,  did  not  need  for  him  the  benediction 
of  the  sunlight.  .  .  .  He  took  out  a  measuring-tape 
and,  with  attentive  eyes  and  a  thrust-out  under-lip, 
made  sure  of  the  breadth  and  length  of  the  parlour 
and  the  two  bedrooms.  His  mother  and  sisters  were 
going  to  give  him  inlaid  linoleum  as  a  wedding  present. 
Essie,  Kathleen,  and  wee  Aggie,  the  prospective 
bridesmaids,  were  to  buy  a  set  of  china.  Cowie 

227 


228          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

looked  at  the  thirteen-paned  cupboard  built  into  the 
parlour  wall  and  visualised  it  lined  with  velvet  to 
display  the  cups  and  saucers.  Then  he  went  back 
into  the  kitchen  and  tried  to  picture  pots  and  pans 
and  dishes  on  the  shelves  :  but  he  failed  utterly  in 
this  because  (he  found)  he  did  not  know  what  things 
were  needed,  nor  where  they  should  hang  or  stand. 
So  he  went  to  the  window-frame,  sunny  and  glass- 
less,  and  gazed  at  the  green  and  brown  land  and  the 
still  unbudded  hawthorns ;  and  at  the  sight  of  the 
unprotected  banks  of  the  river  a  thought  came  to  him, 
so  beautiful  and  solemn,  so  full  of  wonder  and  of  pain, 
that  his  eyes  grew  wet. 

Rolling  up  his  tape,  he  went  out,  whistling,  to  the 
front  of  the  houses,  where  he  saw  a  young  workman 
lying  on  his  back  on  a  heap  of  gold-coloured  sand. 

"  Are  the  painters  anywhere  about  ? "  Cowie 
asked.  The  workman  waved  his  hand  towards  a 
more  developed  portion  of  the  tenement. 

"  They're  working  at  the  second  close,"  he  said, 
eyeing  Cowie  humorously. 

Cowie  found  the  master-painter ;  and  he  too  had 
amused  eyes  as  he  considered  this  young  man,  so 
obviously  about  to  be  married. 

"  I  wanted  to  ask  you — can  I  have  the  woodwork 
in  the  parlour  and  bedrooms  all  white  ?  "  Cowie  asked 
modestly. 

"  Ah,  that'll  be  the  wife's  notion — eh  ?  "  the  painter 
gurgled.  Cowie,  laughing  and  blushing,  was  willing 
to  be  questioned  :  he  wanted  to  tell  the  painters  all 
about  it — to  tell  the  workman  on  the  sand-heap  and 
those  other  workmen  moving  about  a  gleaming  white 
tank  of  lime. 

The  master-painter  was  of  opinion  that  it  could 


THE  WHITE   STUDIO  229 

easily  be  managed  if  Cowie  asked  the  landlord  in  time 
and  was  willing  to  pay  a  little  more 

"  Folks  in  your  case  don't  mind  that,"  the  painter 
said,  jogging  Cowie  with  his  elbow.  "  When's  it  to 
be?" 

Cowie  replied  that  it  was  to  be  in  June,  when,  they 
had  been  told,  the  house  would  be  quite  ready.  The 
painter  pouted  his  lips  and  raised  and  dropped  his 
shoulders  with  the  air  of  a  man  amusedly  sceptical 
of  the  words  of  builders,  house-agents,  and  landlords, 
and  tickled  by  the  simplicity  of  young  couples. 

"  If  you  get  into  it  by  July  .  .  ."he  said. 

"  We'll  see  about  that,"  Cowie  said,  with  a  resolu- 
tion that  might  have  made  a  whole  tenement  spring, 
painted  and  furnished,  from  the  soil. 

Three  weeks  later,  in  truth,  the  range  was  built 
within  the  kitchen  fireplace  and  the  house  was  papered 
and  painted  in  the  colours  that  Drusilla  herself  had 
chosen.  The  water  was  "laid  on"  in  the  long  green- 
and-white  bathroom  and  the  little  blue-and-white 
scullery :  only  the  electric  lights  and  bells  were 
wanting ;  and  Cowie  walked  whistling  through  the 
park  to  Lochaber  Gardens,  to  bring  Drusilla  over  to 
see  their  new  house. 

Cowie,  in  his  new  brown  suit,  ran  upstairs  to  the 
Trathbyes'  flat.  His  cheeks  were  very  pink  and  his 
fringed  eyes  shone  :  but  his  face  was  dulled  into  a 
quiet  anger  as  he  heard  Aunt  Caroline's  voice  within  : 

"  What  are  you  touching  my  books  for  ?  I'm  sick 
of  the  sight  of  you.  I'll  be  glad  when  you're  gone." 

"  Old  devil !  "  Cowie  muttered  as  he  rang.  It  was 
on  account  of  these  outbursts  of  Aunt  Caroline — 
completely  unbalanced  since  her  illness — that  Cowie's 
marriage  had  been  hastened.  But  he  did  not  feel 


230          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

grateful  to  her  ;  and,  though  he  argued  that  hers  was 
a  "mental  case,"  he  hated  the  futile  creature.  He 
looked  at  her  sullenly  as  she  crossed  the  hall  carrying 
her  account-book  and  pen. 

"  Can't  trust  my  papers  out  of  my  sight,"  she  was 
muttering.  "  People  wanting  to  take  my  work  from 
me.  .  .  ." 

She  gave  Cowie  no  greeting,  for  she  had  transferred 
to  him  something  of  the  passion  of  dislike  that  she 
felt  against  her  niece. 

"  Your  aunt  looks  pretty  bad,"  Cowie  said,  decently, 
to  Drusilla,  as  they  went  downstairs.  From  the  day 
of  their  engagement  he  had  spoken  of  her  family 
affairs  with  an  air  of  having  resolved  to  be  as  pleasant 
and  respectful  as  possible,  but  with  no  concessions  to 
her  reserves  or  vanities.  Drusilla  had  been  humiliated 
to  find  how  correctly  he  had  deduced  from  trifling 
things  that  he  had  observed  in  her  family  life.  Cowie 
had  no  illusions  :  he  had  not  five  thousand  a  year  nor 
a  rainbow-coloured  house.  He  said  this  himself, 
humorously,  adding  that  he  was  accustomed  to  keep 
his  eyes  open.  "  Of  course  I  knew  !  "  was  his  laughing 
exclamation,  when  Drusilla,  ashamed  of  something 
said,  tried,  faltering,  to  explain.  Cowie's  medical 
training  enabled  him  to  diagnose,  with  a  briskly 
scientific  ah*,  the  cases  of  Drusilla's  relatives.  "  You'll 
gen'elly  find  there's  a  physical  reason  at  the  bottom 
of  bad  temper,"  he  said.  "  Of  course  you  can't 
pronounce  definitely  whether  the  mind  begins  to 
affect  the  body  or  the  body  the  mind.  It's  like 
the  riddle  about  the  hen  and  the  egg."  He  often 
made  allusions  to  well-known  jests  and  retold  old 
stories  ;  and  Drusilla  received  them  with  a  gentle 
feigning  of  amusement.  She  had  read  in  the  women's 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  231 

magazines  that  this  was  the  way  to  hold  a  husband's 
love. 

Cowie,  of  humble  means  and  position  and  with  a 
chasteningly  "  common  "  mother  and  sisters,  did  not 
prick  Mrs.  Trathbye  to  the  anguish  of  envy  roused  by 
the  thought  of  her  daughter's  marriage  with  Michael 
Quentin.  Besides,  the  state  of  material  misery  into 
which  the  Trathbyes  had  fallen  made  Cowie's  gifts 
things  for  which  to  be  grateful ;  and,  more  potent 
than  this,  was  Mrs.  Trathbye's  sensitiveness  to  the 
young  man's  masculinity,  to  his  talk  and  fun  and 
vivacity.  He  was  very  generous  ;  and  his  mother 
and  sisters  had  the  same  good-nature,  the  same  warm 
hospitality.  They  admired  Mrs.  Trathbye  candidly. 
"  Your  mother's  so  lady-like,"  they  said  to  Drusilla  ; 
and  the  compliment  gave  Mrs.  Trathbye  the  feeling 
that  her  mere  presence  in  the  Cowie's  house  was  more 
than  a  fair  exchange  for  the  plentiful  teas  and  suppers, 
the  gifts  of  flowers  and  fruit  and  honey  and  cakes  and 
tickets.  "  We  can't  entertain,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said, 
flushing,  with  a  smiling  haughtiness,  to  Alick  Cowie's 
mother.  "  My  husband's  property  .  .  .  '  And 
Cowie's  mother — who,  amazingly,  was  not  fat,  but  a 
little  thin  alert  person — answered  with  a  scolding 
kindliness.  Mrs.  Trathbye's  bow,  on  the  presentation 
of  their  friends,  was  a  thing  in  which  the  Cowies 
gloried.  ...  It  is  true  that  the  girls  did  not  make 
friends,  as  Cowie  could  have  wished  them  to  do,  with 
Essie  and  Kathleen  ;  and  that  even  Drusilla,  deter- 
minedly sweet  to  them,  did  not  seem  to  pierce  to  the 
inner  heart  of  his  family.  Bessie,  dark-haired  and 
bright-complexioned  like  her  brother,  but  with  a 
thinned  cheek  and  a  coarsened  bloom,  was  a  pro- 
fessional elder  sister ;  tender,  with  just  a  touch  of 


232          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

patronage,  to  her  mother,  respectful  to  her  brother, 
laughingly  indulgent  to  her  sister.  She  was  many 
years  Cowie's  senior.  Drusilla  had  not  yet  recovered 
from  the  surprise  of  seeing  "  wee  Aggie,"  whom  she 
had  pictured  as  a  glossy-haired  child  of  ten  :  for  Aggie 
was  nearly  her  own  age  and  appeared  to  her  much 
older — a  great,  jolly  creature  with  earrings  and  a  deep 
laugh ;  creamy  complexioned,  laboriously  coiffured, 
and  decidedly  dressed.  She  hung  about  Drusilla, 
affectionately,  with  a  little-girlish  admiration. 

"You're  awfully  pretty  in  that,  "Aggie  said  every 
time  Drusilla  changed  her  frock,  or  hat,  or  collar. 
"  Crivens,  I  wish't  I'd  hair  like  yours  !  .  .  .  You've 
such  a  lovely  mouth."  Drusilla  grew  fond  of  Aggie. 

It  was  only  now  and  then  that  Mrs.  Trathbye's  envy 
of  her  daughter  still  out-flashed.  For  example,  she 
did  not  like  any  congratulating  friend  to  allude  to  the 
good  looks  of  Cowie  ;  and  she  could  not  bear  any 
demonstration  on  his  part  towards  Drusilla.  But  on 
this  latter  point  she  had  little  ground  for  complaint. 
Drusilla  was  very  shy  :  she  would  hardly  allow  Cowie 
to  touch  her,  he  said  ;  and  he  exulted  in  this  delicacy 
of  hers,  yielding  to  her  restrictions  so  that  she  felt 
relieved.  Yet  once  he  had  caught  her  to  him,  roughly, 
irresistibly,  muttering :  "  Just  wait !  .  .  .  "  It  had 
frightened  and  dishonoured  her  and  she  had  wept ; 
and  Cowie  had  asked  her  forgiveness,  tenderly,  but 
with  a  humorous  air  of  knowing  that  women's  tears 
were  all  pretence,  and  their  reserve  a  wile  to  keep  up 
their  value. 

They  went  about  together,  looking  for  furniture  for 
the  new  flat.  Cowie  avoided  cheap  shops,  and  con- 
scientiously preferred  dulled  hues  and  simple  designs  : 
he  had  learned  that  an  avowed  love  of  rich  colours 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  283 

stamped  people  as  vulgar.  "  Beautiful,  isn't  it  ?  " 
he  said,  of  all  things  grey-green  or  blue-grey.  He 
made  jokes  about  shiny  pictures  and  noisy  carpets. 
"  Better  to  get  a  few  nice  carbon  prints,"  he  said, 
before  a  fluffy  brown  Corot.  "  There's  nothing  so 
bourgeois  to  my  mind  as  folks  with  wee  rooms  aping 
the  customs  of  folks  with  big  ones.  My,  I've  seen 
folks  with  a  picture  that  covered  the  whole  of  one  of 
their  walls  ;  and  a  gold  frame — pfui ! — all  over  wi' 
flowers  and  scrolls  and  bunches  of  grapes."  In  his 
animation  Cowie  forgot  to  use  his  literary  society 
diction  :  his  speech  was  almost  like  Aggie's  ;  and  the 
artlessness  of  it  struck  Drusilla  pleasantly.  It  was 
satisfactory,  too,  to  find  Cowie  so  reasonable  and  (it 
seemed  to  her)  refined  in  his  ideas  about  furnishing. 
She  was  timid  herself  and  rather  vague  :  but  he 
received  all  her  suggestions  with  an  eager  respect 
that  bracingly  contrasted  with  the  contempt  and 
bitterness  which  her  family  showed  in  this  matter. 

"  A  nice-looking  house  she'll  have  !  "  Kathleen  said  ; 
and  Essie  was  disturbingly  silent  about  most  of  the 
articles  purchased. 

"  She's  anaemic,"  Cowie  said  cheerfully.  "  I  saw 
it  as  soon  as  I  looked  at  her  lips.  .  .  ."  He  brought  a 
bottle  of  port  wine  for  Essie,  and  advised  her  to  eat 
porridge.  He  would  have  attended  Aunt  Caroline 
free  of  charge  ;  but  she  said  in  his  hearing  that  she 
preferred  "  a  decent  doctor "  and  he  went  away 
temporarily  huffed.  But  the  next  day  he  reappeared 
with  his  air  of  dutiful  pleasantness  and  said  to  Drusilla : 

"  I'm  sorry  for  your  aunt :  there's  no  two  doubts 
an  unmarried  woman  of  a  certain  age  is  a  miserable 
sort  of  creature.  .  .  .  They  form  a  large  percentage 
of  the  suicide  cases — did  you  not  know  that  ?  " 


234          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

He  had  a  habit  of  saying  :  "  Did  you  not  know 
that  ?  "  It  irritated  Drusilla  and  even  puzzled  and 
disappointed  her  :  for  it  was  a  part  of  the  non- 
romantic  attitude  of  his  mind  towards  her.  He  was 
plainly  very  much  in  love  with  her :  but  she  found 
that  that  phrase,  as  commonly  interpreted,  left  out  of 
account  much  that  existed  in  Cowie's  feelings  and 
implied  much  that  was  lacking.  Cowie  seemed 
curiously  inobservant  of,  even  insensible  to,  her 
beauty :  indeed  she  saw  that  he  was  genuinely 
surprised  when  others  spoke  of  it.  She  found  that 
he  did  not  know  if  she  were  tall  or  short ;  if  her  hair 
were  curly  or  smooth,  plentiful  or  scanty.  Her  sex 
attracted  him,  not  her  beauty  :  he  loved  her  woman- 
hood, not  her  maidenhood.  His  iterated  question  : 
"  Did  you  not  know  ? "  expressed  his  impatient 
irreverence  of  maidenly  ignorances,  of  dreams  and 
wilful  delays  ;  his  desire  to  thrust  upon  her  knowledge 
and  responsibility.  He  was  nearly  always  cheerful  : 
he  had  moods  of  blitheness,  when  the  red  blood, 
running  freshly  in  his  body,  excited  him  to  merriment 
and  mischief  and  the  follies  of  happiness  :  but  always, 
underneath,  she  divined  that  strange  contented 
undreaming,  unaspiring  self  with  its  eyes  set  on 
material  things,  the  pompous  flippancies  precious  to 
middle  age.  She  felt  that  he  was  in  haste  to  be  old  : 
that  it  was  his  will  that  she  should  be  old  beside  him. 
Yet  the  idea  would  surely  have  seemed  absurd  to  any 
outsider  ;  for  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  giving  her  a  good 
time  such  as  she  had  never  had  before — a  glad  dazzling 
time  of  spring  and  summer  days.  He  took  her  out 
a  great  deal :  she  became  familiar  with  the  beautiful 
country  places  around  Glasgow  as  they  looked  in  April 
and  May.  They  tramped  the  wet  sunny  roads  between 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  235 

hedges  unthinkably  bright :  they  crossed  moorlands 
just  waking  to  life  :  they  played  golf  on  emerald 
slopes  set  in  a  landscape  of  crimson-brown  woods  just 
fired  with  green  :  they  lay  in  woods  of  hyacinths, 
and  she  saw  Cowie's  handsome  fresh  face  laugh  at  her 
from  daisied  fields  and  the  exuberance  of  hawthorn 
bloom.  The  power  of  taking  railway  tickets  and 
going  to  such  places  seemed  a  wonderful  thing,  giving 
a  man  control  over  the  souls  of  his  fellows ;  and  she 
saw  in  the  fields  and  the  woods  other  couples  :  the 
earth  seemed  full  of  them  :  it  was  as  if  all  human 
beings  had  become  paired,  like  the  cards  in  the  game 
of  "  Old  Maid."  She  saw  them  at  dusk,  in  the 
shadows  of  trees  and  hedges,  standing  silent,  close- 
clasped  ;  and  she  told  herself  that  a  man's  manhood 
drew  a  woman's  womanhood  and  Love  came  of  it 
and  happiness.  .  .  .  There  was  another  thing  of  which 
she  had  dreamed  but  it  was  a  bright  madness. 

Cowie  preferred  even  to  going  into  the  country  to 
do  what  he  called  a  "  swank  down  Sauchie."  It  was 
his  colloquial  way  of  speaking  of  Sauchiehall  Street. 
It  seemed  that  he  had  many  acquaintances  who  also 
"  swanked  "  on  the  bright  spring  afternoons  ;  for  he 
passed  with  noddings  and  smilings  and  liftings  of  his 
hat.  The  footpaths  were  athrong  with  people  :  the 
shops  glittered  with  brilliant  brass  and  plate-glass 
and  glowed  with  colours  :  the  picture-palaces  showed 
daintily,  little  white-domed  doorways  with  variegated 
bills.  Flower-sellers  stood  by  the  kerbs  with  tightly 
tied  nobbles  of  violets,  with  tossing  shining  loads  of 
daffodils,  narcissi,  and  tulips  and  the  sunny  gold  foam 
of  mimosa  splashing  over  these  ;  or,  as  April  yielded 
to  May  and  May  to  June,  with  marguerites  and 
marigolds  and  roses.  On  the  pavement  there  were 


236          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

the  hum  and  crash  of  the  cars,  the  twanks  of  motor- 
horns,  the  rattle  of  cabs  and  carts.  Sandwichmen 
filed  past  with  the  bills  of  music-halls  :  groups  of  girls 
loitered,  with  the  rich  western  complexion,  the  soft 
dark  western  eyes.  People  darted  into  doorways,  or 
rushed  from  them,  carrying  parcels  and  letters.  And 
always  Alexander  Cowie  was  at  Drusilla's  side, 
grasping  her  elbow  when  she  mounted  a  car  or  crossed 
the  street,  drawing  her  to  a  shop  window  to  ask  her 
if  she  would  like  such  and  such  a  thing,  feeding  her  in 
tea-shops,  paying  for  her  entrance  to  picture-palaces, 
calling  her  attention  to  some  tempting  theatrical  bill. 
He  was  like  the  incarnation  of  the  city's  life — a 
frivolous  life  of  bread-winning,  of  shop-gazing,  tea- 
drinking,  pleasure-hunting,  hurrying  ;  a  life  that  took 
no  count  of  solemn  dreams. 

Was  it  not  best  for  her  to  forget  Michael  Quentin  ? 
He  had  not  accepted  her  challenge  :  her  engagement 
to  Cowie  had  not  brought  him  back,  desperate,  wildly 
protesting.  She  had  only  dreamed  that  he  loved  her. 
.  .  .  And  Cowie  was  good  to  her  :  he  loved  her  so 
much  that  sometimes,  suddenly,  his  eyes  grew  dark 
and  wet  and  his  voice  failed.  Cowie  would  always  be 
kind  to  her  :  for  he  was  very  good  to  his  mother  and 
sisters,  and  the  ladies'  papers  said  that  that  was  an 
infallible  sign.  His  manners  in  public  were  certainly 
open  to  criticism  :  but  she  noticed  that,  in  the  house, 
he  would  not  allow  his  mother  to  lift  a  heavy  kettle  ; 
and  he  cleaned  all  the  boots.  The  Cowies  had  no 
servant,  but  he  and  Drusilla  were  to  have  one  when 
they  were  married.  .  .  . 

He  took  her  about  a  great  deal,  and  she  was  gene- 
rally so  tired  at  night  that  she  fell  asleep  quickly.  If 
she  ever  happened  to  have  an  empty  evening  or 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  287 

afternoon  she  filled  it  by  going  to  a  dressmaking  class 
and  working,  with  an  intense  sort  of  industry,  at  her 
trousseau. 

How  could  she  hear  the  voice  of  love,  fear-filling, 
terribly  sure  and  passionate,  crying :  "I  know  ?  " 
It  rang  always  in  the  empty  depths  of  her  heart :  but 
it  sounded  far  away  and  dull  and  dreamlike.  Near  to 
her  there  was  the  snip  of  scissors  and  the  rending  of 
stuffs,  the  whirr  of  the  sewing-machine,  the  rustle  of 
tissue-paper,  the  clash  of  forks  and  spoons — and 
Cowie's  voice. 

"  Ah,  you'll  not  get  many  presents,"  Mrs.  Trathbye 
said  wistfully.  But  it  was  surprising  how  many 
Drusilla  was  getting,  or  rather  how  many  were  being 
sent  to  the  popular  Cowie. 

"  I'm  glad  I'll  soon  be  taking  you  away,"  Cowie 
said  as  they  went  through  the  shade  and  sunshine  of 
the  luxuriantly  green  park.  "  It  isn't  a  wholesome 
atmosphere  for  you  to  have  to  live  in  with  that  awful, 
morbid  old  wife.  My  theory  is  that  the  sexes  have 
a  salutary  influence  on  each  other — that  masculine 
qualities  act,  as  it  were,  as  alkaloids  to  feminine  acids." 
He  advanced  these  commonplaces  always  with  the 
air  of  a  pioneer ;  and,  as  Drusilla  was  not  readily 
responsive  to  this  one,  he  repeated  it  with  a  touch  of 
indignant  surprise.  "  An  exclusively  feminine  house- 
hold isn't  wholesome,"  he  said. 

"  No,"  Drusilla  assented.  "  But  I  don't  think  men 
quite  understand — I  mean  they  overrate  their  import- 
ance to  women.  If  women  had  real  careers  and  edu- 
cation and  were  paid  and  respected  like  men  .  .  ." 

Cowie  shook  his  head,  smiling  archly :  he  was 
amused  by  her  feminine  disingenuousness. 

"  No,  but  really,  Alick  !  "  Drusilla  protested.     She 


238          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

addressed  him  thus  :  but  she  still  always  spoke  of 
and  thought  of  him  as  "  Cowie."  "  Men  think  all  a 
woman's  misfortunes  are  summed  up  in  not  being 
married,"  she  said.  "  But  the  funny  thing  is  women 
hardly  ever  want  to  get  married — just  for  the  sake  of 
being  married,  I  mean.  .  .  ." 

Cowie  was  smiling  more  broadly. 

"  I'm  sure  Aunt  Caroline  never  wanted  to  marry 
any  one,"  Drusilla  said.  "  I  dare  say  she's  angry  now 
because  she  didn't,  but  that's  different ;  or  perhaps 
she's  angry  because  she  didn't  want  it,  or  because 
other  people  didn't  want  it." 

"  There's  a  want  of  perspicuity,"  Cowie  said, 
laughing.  "  My  dear  lassie,  you're  like  all  the  rest  of 
your  sex — and  I  love  you  all  the  better  for  it,  Dillie 
dear.  But  the  ladies  never  can  be  persuaded  to  look 
facts  in  the  face.  Take  your  own  case  now,  for 
example.  If  women  don't  want  to  marry  men,  as 
you  say,  why,  may  I  ask,  are  you  marrying  me  ? — as, 
please  God,  you're  going  to  do  on  the  twentieth  of 
June.  I  know  you're  not  doing  it  for  my  money  " 
— Cowie  laughed  happily — "  so  I  infer  that  it  must  be 
for  myself.  Now,  deny  it  if  you  can,  you  deceitful 
woman !  " 

They  were  in  a  narrow  path,  deep  set  among  dark- 
leaved,  pale-blossomed  rhododendrons,  and  in  this 
solitude  Cowie  again  came  close  to  her,  pressing  his 
arm  about  her.  Drusilla,  withdrawing,  walked  on 
in  silence. 

"  The  Eire's  going  to  give  us  a  present,  did  you 
know  ?  "  Cowie  said  as  they  entered  the  new  flat. 
"  Very  handsome  of  them  :  I  told  Moore  of  course 
I  wasn't  expecting  anything  of  the  kind.  Well,  here 
we  are." 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  239 

The  curious  dulled  state  in  which  Drusilla  had  been 
living  for  months — a  state  in  which  only  her  material 
needs  seemed  alive  and  keenly  enjoying — made  it 
easy  for  her  to  recover  from  the  effect  of  Cowie's  words. 
She  had  felt  indeed  that  she  ought  to  be  made  ashamed 
by  them,  rather  than  that  she  actually  was  so  :  it  was 
as  if  a  drug  had  stupefied  a  part  of  her  or  a  knife 
removed  it,  and  the  mutilated  body  was  living  on, 
eagerly  eating  and  drinking  and  resting,  with  only 
now  and  then  a  sleepy  sense  that  something  was  gone. 
Once  in  the  night,  in  the  time  between  waking  and 
sleeping,  the  thought  had  come  to  her  that  a  world 
that  had  finally  flung  away  God  might  go  on  living 
as  she  was  doing. 

A  girl  in  a  novel,  marrying  as  she  was  doing,  would, 
she  knew,  have  gone  over  the  new  house  with  "  a  sick 
feigning  "  of  interest.  But  she  had  taken  pleasure  in 
it  from  the  first — in  mental  pictures  of  the  rooms  as 
they  would  look  when  finished  and  in  fancying  com- 
promises between  her  aesthetic  sense  and  the  landlord's 
obstinacies  regarding  woodwork  and  cupboards  and 
wallpapers  "  contracted  for  for  the  whole  land."  Her 
comfort-loving,  intensely  domestic  nature  exulted  in 
the  prettiness,  the  cleanliness,  the  freedom  from 
associations :  her  cramped  instincts  for  managing 
and  planning  and  tending  expanded  with  a  fresh  hope 
of  realisation.  Even  the  gas  cooking-stove  was  quite 
unlike  that  stove  which  the  Trathbyes  had  hired, 
long  ago,  from  the  Corporation  ;  which  had  been  so 
quarrelsomely  cleaned,  which  had  been  so  bitterly 
charged  (by  Aunt  Caroline)  with  having  doubled  the 
gas  accounts  ;  which  had  been  finally  given  up  by  Mrs. 
Trathbye,  weeping,  wounded,  resentful,  surmising 
that  Caroline  hated  the  stove  because  its  installation 


240          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

had  been  her  idea.  Now  Drusilla  was  looking  at  her 
own  stove,  tall,  glittering,  with  a  spacious  copper 
boiler.  There  was  no  one  save  herself  to  empty  or 
fill  that  boiler  ;  no  one  to  spill  milk  or  leave  saucepans 
to  boil  over  on  the  top  of  the  stove  ;  no  one  to  say,  in 
self-assertion :  "  Is  it  necessary  to  have  that  gas 
burning  so  long  ?  .  .  .  "  With  a  sense  of  achievement 
she  opened  and  closed  the  heavily  clutching  door  of 
the  oven  ;  she  visualised  pies  and  cakes  on  the  shelves 
— her  pies  and  her  cakes,  unmocked,  unopposed,  in  a 
splendid  inviolability.  As  she  raised  her  head  her 
face  was  flushed. 

"  Dearie  " — Cowie  gasped,  swooping  down  on  her. 
He  embraced  her  tightly,  and  for  a  moment  her  eyes 
were  held  by  his,  shining,  jubilant,  misted  with  tears. 
.  .  .  She  freed  herself  and  went  into  the  bedroom  : 
where  the  drug  was  again  in  complete  control  as  she 
imagined  her  frocks  hanging  uncrushed  in  the  new 
wardrobe. 

"  It  was  nice  of  you,  Alick,"  she  said,  gently  praising 
the  whiteness.  Even  in  the  hall  the  woodwork  was 
white,  and  Cowie  had  remembered  to  get  a  white  seat 
built  into  the  little  recess  :  she  had  worked  two 
cushions  for  it  to  harmonise  with  the  old-rose  paper 
on  the  walls. 

"  Isn't  white  the  right  thing  for  you  ?  "  Cowie  said. 
"  On  the  twentieth  of  June — my  bride  !  .  .  ." 

"  Don't  Alick  !   You're  hurting  me." 

Cowie  mimicked  her. 

"  Coquette  !  "  he  said. 

Mrs.  Trathbye's  opinion  was  that  it  would  be  wise 
for  Drusilla  to  be  married  in  a  nice  costume  and  hat. 
Aunt  Caroline  said  that  white  silk  would  certainly 
make  her  look  very  stout.  But  the  Cowies  were 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  241 

clamorous  for  a  white  wedding  for  the  beautiful  bride  ; 
and  Mrs.  Cowie  asked  to  be  permitted  to  supply 
Drusilla's  dress  and  veil. 

"  Doesn't  she  look  a  picture  ?  "  Mrs.  Cowie  said 
on  the  wedding  morning.  It  was  she  who  had  fastened 
the  dress  and  set  the  veil  and  wreath  on  the  glowing 
hair.  Mrs.  Trathbye  stayed  in  the  other  room  ;  and 
Drusilla  thought  that  this  was  a  thing  which,  later, 
would  impress  her  as  cruel  and  painful.  But  just 
now  the  drugged  sensation  was  so  overwhelming  that 
she  spoke  of  it  to  Essie. 

"  It's  the  excitement,"  Essie  said  tenderly.  It  was 
strange  to  be  hugged — carefully,  on  account  of  the  white 
silk — by  her  and  Kathleen  and  to  see  them  crying. 

"  There's  the  cab,"  Kathleen  said  chokingly.  Mrs. 
Trathbye  rushed  into  the  bedroom,  pressed,  sobbing, 
against  her  daughter,  kissing  her  greedily  and  noise- 
lessly as  a  mother  kisses  a  sleeping  infant. 

"  Now  God  Almighty  bless  you.  .  .  ." 

Later,  Drusilla  and  Cowie  came  out  on  to  the  sunlit 
steps  of  the  church.  Drusilla  knew  that  there  was  a 
crowd  of  smiling  faces  about  her  and  that  she  had  a 
smooth  gold  ring  beside  the  diamond  ring  on  her 
finger.  The  calm  sense  of  unreality  held  her  strongly  : 
she  noticed  each  face  and  figure  near  at  hand,  detach- 
ing itself  from  the  crowd ;  and,  with  the  same 
dreaming  composure,  she  recalled  the  china-like  face 
of  the  girl  in  the  fog  that  afternoon  in  February. 
She  remembered  having  read  somewhere  that  these 
women  nearly  always  drugged  themselves  in  some 
way  or  other  so  that  what  they  did  might  not  be 
unendurable  to  them.  .  .  .  This,  too,  seemed  a 
thought  that,  coming  to  one  awake,  might  seem 
painful  and  significant. 

Q 


242          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

She  passed,  white,  over  the  cardinal-red  carpet ; 
and  the  sun  fell  about  her  "tenderly  as  about  a 
helpless  thing." 

II 

Michael  Quentin  and  old  Patullo  came  back  to 
Scotland  in  September  ;  and  a  few  days  later  Michael 
came  to  the  Mission  Rooms  in  Groome  Street. 

Miss  Morland  had  met  them  at  the  station  on  the 
day  of  arrival,  and  had  seemed  to  Michael  to  be 
improved  in  health  and  in  dress.  She  was  voluble  in 
her  accounts  of  the  work  of  the  Mission  and  the  Eire 
Club  :  catching  up  one  of  Patullo's  bags,  she  strode 
along  the  thronged  platform,  now  separated  from 
Michael  and  Patullo  by  intervening  hurrying  humans, 
now  lurching  against  a  porter's  barrow  or  sidling  up  to 
a  pair  of  strangers,  then  dashing  away  with  an  :  "I 
say  !  Beg  pardon  !  " 

"  You'd  better  keep  it  till  we  get  in  somewhere," 
Patullo  said  with  an  irritated  laugh.  It  was  a  relief 
to  Michael,  whom  Miss  Morland's  shouting  made 
suffer  :  but  he  felt  that  Patullo  was  hardly  glad  to 
see  her. 

At  the  Mission  Rooms  Miss  Morland,  not  quite  in- 
curiously, spoke  of  the  marriage  of  Drusilla  and  Cowie. 
She  had  sent  them  a  flower-pot,  she  said,  and  a  fender- 
stool,  and  she  characteristically  added  that  these 
things  were  handsome  and  had  cost  a  lot.  The  Eire 
Club  had  given  them  a  revolving  bookcase. 

"  Very  nice,"  Michael  said. 

Racie,  engaged  at  the  office,  had  not  been  able  to 
meet  his  friend  on  his  home-coming  :  but  he  had 
come  that  evening  to  the  Mission  Rooms.  He  stood 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  243 

looking  at  Miss  Morland :  pale,  in  his  neat  light 
overcoat,  his  crush-hat  held  under  his  arm.  He 
showed  nervousness  when  Miss  Morland  spoke  of 
Drusilla  and  Cowie. 

"  Do  they  still  come  to  the  meetings  ?  "  Michael 
asked. 

"  Oh,  no,  they've  quite  given  us  up  !  "  Miss  Morland 
said  with  her  wearisome  brightness.  "  They've  got 
other  things  to  do." 

Racie,  smileless,  began  to  tell  Michael  about  the 
public  lectures  last  spring  :  they  had  been  fairly 
successful  and  Michael  contemplated  others,  of  more 
importance,  during  the  coming  winter.  His  idea  was 
that  the  money  obtained  by  these  lectures,  and  the 
club  subscriptions,  should  be  used  for  the  expansion 
of  the  Mission,  which  might,  in  time,  be  entirely 
supported  in  such  ways.  .  .  .  Michael  and  Racie 
discussed  it  at  Mrs.  Wylie's  that  night,  sitting  late 
over  a  fire. 

"  There's  a  plan  come  into  my  head "  Michael 

said. 

Racie  looked  at  him  with  an  emotional  amusement. 
It  was  reassuring  to  hear  Michael  beginning  to  talk 
rubbish  about  plans  :  for  even  Racie's  resolve  to  be 
sane  and  cynical  could  not  resist  the  fact  that  Michael 
was  changed.  How  ?  And  had  the  prolongation  of 
his  absence  been  due  to  a  need  more  personal  than  the 
healing  of  Patullo  ?  Racie  tried  to  ascertain  :  but  his 
habit  of  arguing  from  conclusions  instead  of  from 
premises  left  him  in  a  troubled  nescience. 

"  What  a  fool  that  woman  is  !  "  he  said  suddenly. 
"  Miss  Morland,  I  mean."  He  felt  a  bitterness 
against  her,  a  fear  of  a  certain  thing  that  she  might 
repeat. 


244          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

"  Why  ?  "  Michael  asked  :  it  occurred  to  Racie 
that  six  months  ago  Mick  would  have  rebuked  him 
for  calling  a  lady  a  fool. 

"  She's  so  fearfully  tactless  .  .  .  and  boisterous. 
Everybody  gets  sick  of  her.  Even  old  Patullo  was 
half  sick  of  her,  I  believe,  before  he  left.  So  you're 
quite  contented  with  your  success  there  ?  " 

"  I  hope  it's  all  right,"  Michael  said  solemnly. 
"  I  believe  it  is  :  the  appetite  seems  to  be  gone. 
Doesn't  he  look  different  ?  " 

"  Wonderfully  so,"  Racie  said,  encouraging. 

"  I  shouldn't  say  Miss  Morland  was  tiresome," 
Michael  went  on.  "  She's  curiously  interesting  to  me, 
in  fact.  So's  Patullo  ...  I  wonder  if  lives  like  theirs 
haven't  a  quite  special  sort  of  significance." 

"  Lives  .  .  .  ?  " 

"  Broken  lives,"  Michael  said.  "  Wasted  lives, 
as  they're  called.  Lives  that  are  smashed  into 
pieces." 

Racie  was  moving  uneasily,  fearful  of  the  turn  that 
the  talk  was  taking.  Why  had  he  interrupted 
Michael  hi  speech  of  his  plan  ? 

"  I  don't  see  what  reason  you  have  for  saying  Miss 
Morland's  life  has  been  smashed  into  pieces,"  he  said 
quizzically. 

"Any  one  could  see  it,"  Michael  said  with  a  certitude 
beyond  contempt.  "  Any  one  that  .  .  .  knew  any- 
thing, I  mean.  .  .  .  Never  mind.  Sometimes  I 
wonder  if  the  souls  of  these  people,  on  higher  planes, 
have  consented  to  the  sacrifice  of  their  earthly  lives 
— if  they  are  offering  them,  broken  up  as  they  are,  so 
that  they  may  be  taken  and  other  lives  built  up  out 
of  them.  .  .  .  Patullo  said  once  that  men  might  make 
the  most  wonderful  and  meaningful  holy  temple  out 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  245 

of  the  broken  pillars  of  old  peoples.  ...  I  feel 
somehow  as  if  Miss  Morland  and  Patullo  meant 
something  to  my  life.  I  shouldn't  dare  to  despise 
them.  There's  a  kind  of  grandeur  in  having  one's  life 
riven  to  pieces." 

"  Are  you  sure  it  isn't  disintegration  ?  "  Racie 
asked.  "  The  results,  after  a  time,  might  look  much 
the  same."  He  went  on  nervously,  hi  his  fear  for 
Michael,  gulping  at  the  beginnings  of  words  :  "  Besides 
I  thought  you  believed  in  mending  broken  lives,  not 
in  swallowing  them  up.  Isn't  that  what  you've  been 
trying  to  do  with  Patullo  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  so,"  Michael  said,  with  his  peaceful 
inconsistency.  "  I  was  thinking  of  Miss  Morland 
rather  than  of  Patullo." 

"  You  said  Patullo,  you  know,"  Racie  said. 

"Well,  I  don't  care,"  Michael  said.  "I  haven't 
developed  the  thought :  I'm  just  chasing  it.  You 
can  consider  an  idea  without  nailing  it  down  as  your 
creed.  ...  I  mean,  I've  been  wondering  if  sacrifice 
isn't  the  very  source  of  life,  and  if  I'm  not  mistaken 
in  trying  to  make  plans  for  bringing  happiness  to 
people?" 

"  Ah,  that's  comprehensible,"  Racie  said.  "  You 
mean  it's  not  worth  while  to  patch  the  broken  lives  : 
better  to  scrap  them  and  make  new  ones." 

"  Journalese,"  Michael  murmured.  "  I  mean  the 
souls  on  a  higher  plane  may  use  the  apparent  destruc- 
tion of  these  earthly  lives  as  the  best  way  of  serving 
other  lives.  Perhaps  there's  a  social  meaning  in 
'  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit  .  .  .  * 
Some  people  seem  to  be  used  as  finger-posts  all  along 
the  way  of  life." 

"  How  not  to  do  it !  "  Racie  murmured.     "  Poor 


246          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

beggars.  .  .  .  You  don't  .  .  .  ?  "  He  looked  up 
scaredly. 

"  I  don't  mean  myself,"  Michael  said  smiling.  "  A 
man  may  make  a  lot  of  mistakes.  .  .  .  His  life  isn't 
broken  to  pieces  unless  the  basis  of  it  is  smashed." 

"  The  basis  of  yours  ?  "  Racie  suggested. 

"  The  basis  of  mine  is  faith  in  God,"  Michael  said  ; 
"  and  the  wish  to  do  something  for  men.  That 
couldn't  go  to  pieces,  you  know — it  couldn't.  It's 
an  eternal  basis.  ...  It  couldn't  be  broken." 

"  Well,  I'll  take  your  word  for  it,"  Racie  said  with 
a  lightening  of  heart.  It  was  a  relief  to  find  that 
Michael  was  as  much  of  a  fool  as  ever.  He  could  not 
have  cared  for  the  girl.  ...  As  for  the  unescapable 
if  undefinable  changes  in  his  face  and  voice — Racie 
tried  to  attribute  these  to  travel,  or  a  cold,  or  foolish 
experiments  in  reformed  diets.  .  .  .  Racie  drank 
another  glass  of  wine,  lighted  another  cigarette,  and 
snuggled  down  into  the  arm-chair  with  a  delightful 
sense  of  having  got  Michael  back  again. 

"  About  your  plan,  Mick  ?  " 

"Yes,"  Michael  said.  "Of  course  it  isn't  final. 
It  doesn't  express  any  conviction  to  which  I've 
struggled.  I  told  you  just  now  I  doubted  if  there  were 
any  use  in  doing  things  until  you're  sure  what  you're 
meant  to  do.  .  .  .  Only  I've  got  the  money  and  I 
can't  help  trying  to  lessen  human  misery  until  I'm 
told  on  good  authority  that  misery  brings  the  world 
closer  to  God." 

"  If  it  does  we  must  be  bumping  up  against  Him," 
Racie  said. 

Michael  laughed.  "  Perhaps  we  are,"  he  said,  with 
his  self-conscious  intensity.  "  And  we  can't  see  Him 
in  the  dark." 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  247 

"  Well,  Patullo  isn't  here  to  admire  that  figure — so 
tell  me  about  your  plan  instead,"  Racie  said.  The 
assurance  that  Michael  had  never  been  attracted  by 
the  girl,  that  there  had  been  absolutely  nothing 
mysterious  between  him  and  her,  made  it  again 
possible  to  laugh  at  Michael,  to  be  rude  to  him. 

Michael,  pitching  forward  in  his  chair,  linking  his 
hands  about  his  knees,  spoke  eagerly  of  the  plan.  He 
was  going  to  buy  a  site  somewhere,  in  town,  and  build 
some  ideal  little  dwellings  for  the  poor  people  of  the 
Eire  Mission.  He  must  have  the  site  in  town  because 
so  many  of  the  people  went  to  work.  .  .  .  He  was 
going  to  build  baths,  and  a  gymnasium  and  a  day 
nursery. 

"  You  see,  the  conditions  of  my  mother's  will 
prevent  me  from  using  my  money  for  any  political 
purpose,"  Michael  said  ;  "  or  I  should  do  something 
for  Home  Rule.  ...  I  used  to  kick  against  the  will, 
but  now  I  don't  mind  so  much  :  I'm  beginning  to  see 
it's  one's  fellow-humanity,  not  one's  fellow-nationality. 
.  .  .  Still,  I  think  it's  as  well  for  me  to  begin  with 
the  Eire  :  it's  definite.  ...  I  see  now  I've  always 
been  expecting  too  much  of  people,  and  getting  too 
impatient  when  they  didn't  come  up  to  my  ideas. 
I'll  take  time  :  I'll  stick  to  the  Eire  and  give  them 
a  chance  to  shape." 

"  You're  getting  quite  sensible,"  Racie  said  in  his 
appreciation  of  the  Eire  as  contrasted  with  a  love- 
affair  with  Drusilla. 

"  I've  often  had  thoughts  of  starting  a  Socialist 
paper,"  Michael  said,  as  if  to  disprove  the  state- 
ment. 

"  Oh  .  .  .  guck  !  .  .  .  "  Racie  inarticulated. 

"  If  I  could  get  a  good  man  to  edit  it  for  me," 


248          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Michael  said,  looking  at  him  with  eyes  full  of  an 
indignant  reproach. 

Racie  took  out  a  copy  of  The  Mercury.  It  contained 
a  short  article  of  his  and  several  paragraphs  ;  coldly 
written,  in  the  dullest,  most  formal  newspaper  lan- 
guage that  could  express  his  self-contempt. 

"  Put  that  rag  away  !  "  Michael  cried.  He  caught 
at  it  and  they  wrestled.  Michael  threw  the  paper 
into  the  fire  and  leaned  back,  flushed,  laughing  on  a 
high  note. 

"  There's  only  one  other  thing,"  Racie  said,  his 
hand  on  the  arm  of  his  friend's  chair.  "  The  money 
was  fearfully  muddled,  you  know.  Is  Patullo  to  have 
it  again  ?  .  .  .  There  was  talk  about  him  in  the  club  : 
they  said  he'd  some  drain  on  his  resources — a  drunken 
wife  or  something.  .  .  ." 

"  It's  all  right,"  Michael  said.  "  I  think  it  would 
be  good  for  him — it  would  keep  up  his  self-respect." 

"  It's  a  temptation,"  Racie  said.  "  If  we  have 
those  big  lectures  in  public  halls  there'll  be  sums 
passing  through  his  hands.  .  .  .  You  said  he'd  apply 
to  you  if  he  wanted.  .  .  .  Men  are  queer  beggars." 

"  Yes,"  Michael  said  angrily.  "  Some  men  are 
queer.  Some  men  struggle  against  friendship — 
Patullo's  not  like  that.  You  mean  he'd  find  it  easier 
to  rob  me  than  to  ask  me.  ...  I  don't  believe  it." 

Racie  was  silent,  looking  a  little  ashamed.  Going 
away,  he  mused  on  the  extraordinary  character  of 
Michael  Quentin.  Michael  was  changed :  was  the 
change  one  of  development,  rather  than  of  alteration  ? 
He  seemed  to  have  absorbed  something,  in  truth, 
from  the  broken  life  of  Patullo — or  from  .  .  .  ? 

Racie  checked  himself  with  an  impatient  shrug  of 
his  shoulders.  It  had  been  a  mistake  of  his  about 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  249 

Miss  Trathbye  :  it  was  ridiculous,  in  the  face  of  such 
strong  evidence  to  the  contrary,  to  allow  that  per- 
sistent suspicion  that  there  had  been  something 
between  Miss  Trathbye  and  Michael.  The  thought 
came  again  and  again,  a  real  thing  putting  to  flight  the 
shifts  and  sophistries  of  his  reasoning.  Racie  resolved 
not  to  go  to  bed,  but  to  write  that  article  on  the  Irish 
situation  for  The  Mercury.  He  sat  down  by  the 
smoky  fire  in  his  sitting-room  and  wrote  the  title  on 
his  block  : 

"  Kerrymen  and  Derrymen." 

He  had  meant  to  say  that  the  struggle  between  the 
north  and  south  bade  fair  to  become  as  poignant  as 
the  proverbial  conflict  between  the  east  and  west. 
He  had  meant  to  compare  the  Orange  and  Green  to 
the  Kilkenny  cats,  and  to  suggest,  jocularly,  that  the 
residue  of  tail-tips  would  be  as  much  as  the  Empire 
would  care  to  keep  of  both  parties.  Thorns  might 
make  a  cartoon  embodying  this  figure.  .  .  .  Pyeugh  ! 
Any  rotten  rubbish  would  do  for  The  Mercury,  and  the 
rottener  the  better.  He  was  going  to  knock  the  thing 
off  in  twenty  minutes.  .  .  . 

Twenty-five  minutes  passed.  Racie,  holding  the 
block  inscribed  with  the  words  "  Kerrymen  and 
Derrymen,"  had  thought  continuously  of  Michael 
Quentin.  It  was  not  possible  to  predicate  of  Michael 
that  he  would  behave  in  such  and  such  a  fashion. 
Remembering  Michael's  habitual  politeness  to  God, 
Racie  smiled  as  he  told  himself  that  Michael  might 
be  capable  of  offering  God  the  fruits  of  a  disappoint- 
ment in  love.  The  witticism  seemed  to  demand 
utterance,  and  Racie  was  irked  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  alone. 


250          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

III 

Mrs.  Wylie,  talking  with  the  extra  garrulity  proper 
to  the  welcome  of  a  home-comer,  had  lighted  the  gas 
in  Michael's  bedroom,  and  pointed  to  two  new  picture 
frames  on  the  wall. 

"  My  son  Wilfrid  made  these,  Mr.  Quentin — of 
fir-cones  and  beech-nuts  and  acorns  he's  been 
collecting." 

"  Very  clever,"  Michael  said,  smiling.  After  Mrs. 
Wylie  had  gone  he  stood,  the  smile  on  his  lips,  con- 
sidering the  hexagonal  frames  embossed  with  little 
cones  in  a  shining  welter  of  varnish.  He  was  sleepy 
and  not  in  a  particularly  sad  mood  :  he  believed  that 
the  worst  of  the  struggle  was  over — the  agony  and 
astonishment  of  those  weeks  immediately  following 
the  news  of  Brasilia's  engagement.  He  had  con- 
vinced himself  (he  thought)  that  he  had  made  a  mis- 
take :  Brasilia  must  love  Cowie,  however  grotesque 
and  incredible  it  seemed.  Michael  had,  in  truth, 
behaved  somewhat  in  the  fantastic  fashion  that  Racie, 
sarcastic,  had  surmised  :  he  had  tried  to  learn  from 
his  loss  :  he  believed  that  he  had  learned.  He  had 
prayed  for  Brasilia :  once  or  twice  even,  in  a  frenzy 
of  quixotry,  he  had  sent  up  prayers  for  Alexander 
Cowie.  He  had  prayed  that  the  love  that  he  might 
not  pour  out  on  a  girl  might  be  sanctified,  might  be 
deepened  and  broadened  into  a  great  stream  of  pity 
for  suffering  humanity.  He  said  to  himself  with  a 
laugh  that  sorrow  was  meant  to  have  a  centrifugal, 
not  a  centripetal,  effect ;  and  with  the  return  of  the 
power  to  smile  at  himself  there  had  come  a  quietening 
of  his  pulses.  In  the  peace  of  his  soul  his  sorrow 
showed  as  a  beautiful,  holy  thing.  .  .  . 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  251 

Yet  there  had  been  a  sense  of  disappointment  when 
Grace  Morland  had  said  that  Brasilia  and  Cowie  never 
came  to  the  Eire. 

IV 

At  Lochaber  Gardens  Essie  was  sleeping  alone  in 
the  bed  that  she  and  Brasilia  used  to  occupy.  She 
was  roused  by  a  sound  in  the  room  and  looked  up 
uncomprehendingly  into  the  face  of  her  mother. 
Mrs.  Trathbye,  in  her  grey-blue  dressing-gown,  was 
carrying  a  taper. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  Essie  complained. 

"  There's  something  most  remarkable  going  on  next 
door,"  Mrs.  Trathbye  said  with  dramatic  gestures 
that  spattered  the  taper's  wax  over  the  bedclothes. 

"  I  wish  you'd  mind  what  you're  doing,  Mother," 
Essie  said.  "  And  I  wish  you  wouldn't  come  waking 
me  up  this  way.  It's  hard  enough  to  get  to  sleep." 

"  Ah  !  .  .  .  "  Mrs  Trathbye  uttered,  reproachful ; 
and  went  on  with  her  incoherent  statements.  "  The 
noise  and  uproar  was  like  nothing  I've  ever  heard  in 
my  life.  Upon  my  honour,  I  was  certain  the  house 
was  coming  down  and  your  aunt  was  nearly  mad 
with  terror.  .  .  ." 

"  What  was  it  ?  "  Essie  cried. 

"  Ah,  how  can  I  tell  you  what  it  was  ?  There's 
something  very  far  wrong  at  Patullo's.  He  looked  so 
decent  when  he  came  back  I  thought  to  myself: 
'  That  man's  really  going  to  try  to  change  his  life.' ' 

"  Oh,  if  he's  drank,  that's  nothing,"  Essie  said. 
"  But  I  didn't  think  he  ever  got  noisy " 

Kathleen  suddenly  cried  out  from  the  hall-door, 
where  she  and  Aunt  Caroline  were  on  their  knees 
peeping  through  the  letter-box.  Mrs.  Trathbye 


252          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

rushed  excitedly  from  the  room  and  Essie  had  to 
resist  an  impulse  to  follow  her. 

"  A  funny-looking  woman's  come  out  of  his  house," 
Kathleen  said.  "  She  distinctly  said  something  about 
Miss  Morland." 

Aunt  Caroline  contradicted. 

"  She  did  not.  She  said  something  about  brown 
holland." 

Mrs.  Trathbye  hastened  to  the  parlour  window  and 
leaned  out ;  the  figure  of  a  woman,  short  and  wide, 
came  quickly  from  the  close  and,  with  something 
frantic  in  its  gait,  went  down  the  street.  Mrs.  Trath- 
bye was  aware  of  Patullo,  at  his  own  oriel,  pale-faced 
in  the  darkness,  watching  the  woman  go. 


"  She  wasn't  happy  at  home,"  Miss  Morland  had 
said  to  Racie  and  to  many  other  people.  This  was 
the  thing  that  Racie  feared  that  the  fool  of  a  woman 
might  repeat  in  Michael's  presence.  And  there  was 
no  knowing  what  effect  it  might  have  on  Michael, 
whose  composition  was  an  unknown  thing.  .  .  . 
Racie  cursed  himself,  wondered  at  himself,  reassured 
himself :  but  always  there  fluttered  in  his  heart 
those  fears  for  Michael  Quentin. 

It  was  a  comfort  that,  at  the  next  few  meetings  of 
the  club,  the  woman  was  occupied  in  talking  about 
Patullo.  Racie  compared  her  to  an  over-full  cup  of 
weak  tea,  slopping  over  into  the  saucer  :  she  could 
not  help  speech  of  what  was  in  her  mind  :  she  risked 
slander  and  derision  to  obtain  a  listener. 

"  Isn't  it  awful,  Mick  ? "  she  said  to  Michael. 
"  Mr.  Patullo's  wife  has  found  him.  Such  an  abomin- 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  253 

able  woman.  Oh,  yes,  I  know  her,  I've  seen  her  often 
before  !  She  has  found  his  address  and  she's  been  up 
at  his  house  several  times ;  and  the  other  day  she 
came  up  when  I  was  there  and  she  made  the  most 
awful  row,  and  insulted  me.  I  was  amused.  Isn't 
it  scrumptious  ?  .  .  .  She  said  it  wasn't  proper  for 
me  to  be  such  good  friends  with  Mr.  Patullo  !  .  .  . 
Did  you  ever  hear  anything  like  it  ?  " 

As  Michael  had  heard  things  almost  identical  spoken 
of  Miss  Morland's  friendship  with  Patullo,  he  was 
embarrassed.  A  flush  rose  in  his  face  and  he  hung 
his  head. 

"  It's  more  money  she  wants,  of  course,"  Miss 
Morland  said.  "  It's  just  the  hope  that  the  fear  of 
disgrace  before  his  pupils  will  make  him  pay  her  more. 
Mr.  Patullo  told  me  he  gave  her  more  than  he  could 
afford.  .  .  .  It's  just  blackmail." 

At  the  Mission  Rooms  Michael  heard  Miss  Morland 
talking  stridently  to  the  expressionless  Racie ;  and 
the  word  "  blackmail "  recurred  wearisomely.  It 
wounded  Michael  that  Patullo  had  not  yet  confided 
in  him  about  this  matter. 

"  She's  pretending  now  she  was  treated  badly 
about  little  Harry,"  Miss  Morland  said.  "  She  never 
loved  him  :  why,  Racie,  he  was  the  last  of  five  and 
nothing  but  her  neglect  killed  all  of  them " 

Racie  gave  her  a  side-glance. 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  "  he  asked  :  but  Miss  Mor- 
land went  on,  loud,  virulent. 

"  I  know  all  about  their  affairs  :  Mr.  Patullo  has 
always  confided  in  me  :  you  know  what  a  friendship 
there's  been  between  us.  I  feel  so  safe  in  a  friendship 

of  that  sort — there's  such  a  difference  in  our  ages " 

Racie's  lips  just  tightened  cynically  :  his  opinion  was 


254          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

that  Miss  Morland  was  just  now  looking  nearly  as  old 
as  Patullo,  and  he  felt  that  she  was  despicable  for 
this.  "  He's  always  been  so  good  to  me  with  his 
advice  and  sympathy — not  that  I've  ever  been  in  a 
position  to  need  it,"  Miss  Morland  babbled.  "  My 
life's  been  such  a  bright  one  so  far.  Still,  he's  been 
like  a  father  to  me.  .  .  ." 

Racie,  skilfully  sidling  along  the  room,  managed  to 
shed  Miss  Morland  on  to  a  bench  beside  Michael. 
She  went  on  with  hardly  a  pause  : 

"  Upon  my  word,  I  think  marriage  is  an  awfully 
wretched  thing,  don't  you  ?  I  wouldn't  give  up  my 
freedom  :  I  feel  sorry  for  girls  when  I  hear  they're 
going  to  be  married,  and  I'm  sorrier  still  for  men  tied 
to  awful  women  like  that.  No  sympathy  ever 
between  them,  nothing  in  common.  .  .  ." 

Michael  had  often  heard  Miss  Morland  express 
these  views  on  marriage :  he  smiled  gently,  chaffing 
her  a  little,  half  listening  while  she  ran  on  in  her 
broken  inconsequent  way,  passionately,  regarded  by 
round  eyes  and  overheard  by  outraged  ears.  The 
mission  people,  shawled  and  capped,  were  crowding 
into  the  bright  bare  room. 

"  I  wonder  if  Dillie  Trathbye  and  Alick  Cowie  are 
happy,"  Miss  Morland's  voice  came.  ..."  I  always 
suspected  she  married  him  to  get  away  from 
home." 

Racie  and  another  man  were  moving  the  piano  to 
make  room  for  the  dance  with  which  the  evening  was 
to  open.  Michael  was  aware  of  the  pianist,  a  plump 
girl  in  white,  removing  a  phenomenal  number  of 
silver  bangles. 

"  To  get  away  .  .  .  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  she  was  wretched  at  home  !  "  Miss  Morland 


THE  WHITE  STUDIO  255 

vociferated.  "  Awfully  unhappy.  Her  aunt's  bed- 
ridden now,  they  say  ;  but  she  was  always  a  fearful 
old  person.  She  led  Dillie  such  a  life,  she  often  used 
to  run  up  to  my  digs  in  tears.  The  mother  was  some- 
thing of  a  Tartar  too.  Alick  Cowie's  often  confided 
in  me  about  it :  he  said  he  was  glad  to  get  Dillie  out 
of  the  house,  away  from  them  all.  .  .  .  But  it  never 
seemed  to  strike  the  poor  boy  she  was  marrying  him 
just  to  get  away." 

"  Get  away  from  what  ?  " 

"  Why,  the  Trathbyes  are  miserably  poor,"  Grace 
said,  scornful.  "  Didn't  you  notice  ?  I  was  often 
ashamed  to  go  out  with  Dillie — holes  in  her  boots, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  cheap  rags  on  her.  I 
must  say  my  friends  are  rather  a  smartly  dressed 
lot.  .  .  I  can  always  tell  a  girl  who  comes  out  of  a 
nice  house." 

"  What  was  wrong  ?  .  .  .  Her  mother  was  very 
fond  of  her  .  .  ."  Michael  faltered. 

"  Her  mother  hated  her,"  Miss  Morland  clashed  out. 
"  Every  one  noticed  it." 

Racie  had  drawn  nearer,  and  Michael  was  aware  of 
his  dark  figure,  the  regular  motion  of  his  arm,  and  the 
white  spray  of  the  powdered  wax  he  was  scattering 
on  the  floor.  The  pianist  had  set  her  cylinder  of 
bangles  on  the  top  of  the  piano,  where  they  glinted. 
The  gaslights  swayed  in  the  gusts  from  the  continuous 
opening  and  closing  of  the  door,  and  the  green 
draperies  on  the  platforms  and  windows  softly  bellied 
out  and  subsided.  Michael  nodded  to  Mrs.  Quinn, 
smiling  in  a  group  of  friends  :  but  the  power  to  love 
these  people,  the  power  to  be  interested  in  them,  was 
suddenly  gone.  It  was  as  if  an  edifice  which  he  had 
built  up  patiently,  with  labour  and  sorrow  and  prayer, 


256          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

had  felt  the  blows  of  a  fierce  wind  and  had  fallen, 
huddling.  His  will  had  taken  hold  of  his  own  life, 
resolved  to  guide  and  use  it :  but  the  wind  ! — the 
wind  blew  where  it  listed,  and  no  man  could  stay  its 
breath. 

It  was  not  conscious  pain  that  he  felt :  it  was  an 
impulse  so  overwhelming  that  he  did  not  know  whether 
it  could  be  likened  to  gladness  or  to  grief.  He  was 
saying  to  himself  that  he  must  see  Drusilla  and  know 
the  truth.  The  idea  of  sitting  through  the  long 
programme  of  efforts  to  "  bring  people  together " 
did  not  present  itself  to  him  as  intolerable  and 
impertinent :  he  simply  ignored  it. 

Racie  was  furtively  glancing  at  his  friend.  He  knew 
what  that  silly  old  thing  had  been  saying  to  Michael. 
Why,  she  never  mentioned  an  engaged  or  married 
couple  without  doubting  the  purity  of  their  motives, 
the  compatibility  of  their  temperaments.  .  .  .  But 
how  could  one  make  Michael  Quentin  see  that  ? 

"  Miss  Morland — I  think  every  one's  ready  for  the 
dance,"  Racie  said,  his  habitual  dryness  almost 
kindling  into  unpleasantness.  He  resentfully  watched 
her  slouching  into  the  middle  of  the  floor,  clapping 
her  hands  and  bawling  out :  "  Now,  good  people  !  " 
She  taught  the  steps  awkwardly  and  uncertainly, 
with  blunderings,  with  an  amateur's  destructive 
criticism.  What  an  amateur  she  was  in  everything  ! 
— in  life  itself !  Yet  Michael  Quentin's  judgment 

"  No  wonder  the  School  Board  won't  give  her  a 
berth,"  Racie  murmured.  "  All  private  schools  she 
teaches  in — um  ?  Mick,  if  you  want  the  thing  to  go, 
you  ought  to  get  another  instructor.  You  could  keep 
her  as  an  assistant  to  save  her  feelings." 

Michael  looked  at  him  :   it  was  disturbing  to  Racie 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  257 

to  realise  that  the  words  had  not  impressed  his 
friend's  consciousness. 

;'  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  Racie  asked  with  some- 
thing of  fierceness. 

"  Out  of  this,"  Michael  answered  with  his  simple 
truthfulness.  "  I  must  get  thinking." 

VI 

He  must  see  Drusilla  :  he  must  know  the  truth. 
.  .  .  Had  he  not  always  known  it  ?  Had  there  not 
always  been  a  deep  place  in  his  heart  where,  beyond 
the  reach  of  reason  and  righteousness,  unconquered, 
there  had  crouched  the  conviction  that  she  did  not 
love  Cowie  ? 

She  did  not  love  Cowie  :  she  could  not :  it  was  a 
thought  too  incredible  for  complete  faith  even  in 
Michael's  moments  of  highest  altruism,  of  humblest 
submission.  Since  there  was  a  spark  of  the  Divine 
in  all  men  there  must  be  one  in  Cowie  :  Michael  did 
not  deny  this  :  all  that  he  could  assert  was  that  he 
had  never  seen  this  spark — and  he  did  not  believe  that 
Drusilla  had  seen  it. 

He  had  told  himself,  struggling  with  his  first  agonies 
and  astonishments,  that  he  ought  to  be  glad  that  her 
love  had  fallen  like  a  light  on  Alexander  Cowie's  life, 
illuming  and  blessing  it.  A  nature  as  base  and  vile 
as  Cowie's  had  just  this  paramount  need  of  a  sign 
so  dazzling  and  undeniable  of  God's  existence.  He 
had  argued  with  himself  that  love  at  its  noblest  was 
not  an  exchange  affected  between  two  equals  ;  not 
even  the  flooding  together  of  two  lives  passionately 
sympathetic.  No  :  the  highest  love  was  that  which 
he  had  recognised  in  the  days  when  he  had  thought 


258          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

only  of  the  love  of  God  ;  a  rapture  of  giving,  of  helping 
and  saving ;  pitiful,  unrecking,  eternal.  He  had 
told  himself  that  perhaps  only  a  wretch  like  Cowie 
could  bring  such  a  love  showering  down  from  a  noble 
woman's  heart.  ...  As  for  himself,  he  had  faith  and 
hope  :  he  could  learn  to  climb,  patiently  and  not 
unhappily,  alone  :  he  could  learn  to  bend  to  give  a 
hand  to  those  weaker.  He  had  never  yielded  to  the 
thought  that  his  life  would  be  broken  :  it  could  not 
be  even  lonely  with  the  sense  that  she  was  working 
by  his  side,  seeking  to  bless  one  man's  life  while  he 
blessed  many. 

But  suppose  he  had  been  mistaken  about  her  ? 
He  had  often  made  mistakes  about  people.  Suppose 
this  supreme  love,  too,  had  been  fostered  and  fed  by 
imaginings  ?  Suppose  she  had  not  understood  or  had 
understood  only  a  little.  .  .  . 

Oh,  God  !  Had  there  been  a  moment  in  which  she 
had  needed  his  help  ?  Might  he  have  saved  her  ?  .  .  . 
It  was  a  thing  of  which  he  was  afraid  to  think. 

"  I  must  see  her,"  he  said  to  himself  again.  "  Then 
I'll  know.  I  must  know."  He  had  no  reflections  on 
what  might  follow,  and  no  consciousness  of  the  exact 
state  of  his  feelings  towards  her.  He  did  not  feel  that 
she  was  lower  than  he  had  thought,  nor  did  he  seek 
for  justifying  explanations  of  her  action.  He  felt  as 
if  he  were  waiting,  tensely,  for  a  message,  the  tre- 
mendous significance  of  which  annulled  all  inter- 
vening thought  and  held  all  future  action  dependent. 
He  must  know. 

He  resolved  not  to  go  down  to  Fauldstane.  In  two 
days  there  was  to  be  a  meeting  of  the  Eire  Club  ;  and, 
if  he  went  about  town,  he  might  meet  her  somewhere. 
...  If  he  did  not,  and  if  she  and  Cowie  did  not  come 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  259 

to  the  meeting  of  the  club,  he  would  write  to  them, 
regretting  their  absence  and  specially  inviting  them 
to  attend  at  the  next  lecture.  Then  (he  thought)  he 
could  go  back  to  The  Corner  House  and  begin  to  study 
again  in  the  white  studio. 

He  went  about  town  but  he  met  neither  Drusilla 
nor  Cowie.  He  did  not  expect  to  see  them  at  the  club 
meeting  :  so  he  spent  the  afternoon  of  that  day  in 
writing  to  them,  and  went  to  the  club-rooms  with  the 
letter  in  his  pocket. 

It  was  a  warm  night  and  Burke  Place  was  of  a  blue- 
black  darkness  with  here  and  there  the  long  shaken 
reflection  of  a  gas-lamp  seeming  to  go  quivering  down 
into  the  deeps  of  the  pavement.  There  was  a  little 
pool  in  each  of  the  concave  steps  and  the  old-fashioned 
rain-misted  lamp,  elbowing  out  above  the  doorway, 
made  a  blurred  wash  of  golden  Light.  .  .  .  And 
suddenly,  heart-breakingly,  there  lived  again  that 
other  moist  blue  night  of  more  than  a  year  ago,  with 
the  scurr  of  the  match,  and  the  scent  of  the  rose,  and 
the  sweet  expectant  voice  calling  .  .  .  calling. 

Calling  for  what  ?  For  the  things  that  a  woman 
needed  most  and  a  man  could  give.  For  a  home  and 
food  and  clothes  and  tendance  in  sickness  ?  For  the 
glory  of  Love  and  the  finding  of  God. 

Michael  saw  a  woman  standing  on  the  highest  of 
the  steps.  She  closed  her  umbrella,  and  the  misted 
golden  lamp-light  suffused  her  hair  disordered  under 
a  velvet  cap. 

"  Let  me  take  your  cloak,"  Michael  said.  She 
let  it  fall  from  her  shoulders  as  their  clasped 
hands  quickly  loosed.  Michael  stood  for  a  moment 
seeing  the  lovely  face  that  the  faithless  soul  had 
betrayed. 


260          THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

VII 

"  Going  to  be  nobody  but  werselves  ?  "  Cowie  said. 
He  had  come  in  his  shirt-sleeves  into  the  parlour, 
where  Drusilla  sat  at  her  writing-table.  Lately  Cowie 
had  begun  to  wear  the  medical  tall  hat  and  frock- 
coat  ;  and  he  was  obliged  to  take  care  of  these 
sombre  signals  of  prosperity,  removing  the  coat  as 
soon  as  he  came  indoors.  He  wriggled  into  a  trim 
jacket. 

"  Did  you  post-card  Aggie  to  come  over  to  you 
to-night?"  Cowie  asked.  He  had  joined  a  local 
orchestra  in  which  he  led  the  violins,  and  it  met  for 
practice  every  Thursday. 

"  No.  I  knew  she  couldn't  come,"  Drusilla  said, 
with  her  pretty  smile.  "  You  needn't  worry  about 
me,  Alick — thanks.  ...  If  I'm  very  lonely  I  can  go 
to  the  Eire — this  is  the  night  for  it,  and  Miss  Morland's 
always  asking  me  to  come." 

Cowie  sat  silent  for  a  minute  ;   then  said  : 

"  I  wish  you'd  drop  that  woman.  She's  spoken 
about.  .  .  .  You'd  be  just  as  well  not  to  invite  her 
to  your  house." 

"  I  don't  invite  her :  she  comes,"  Drusilla  said 
with  a  laugh.  "  I  don't  like  her  really,  Alick — and 
I  don't  think  she  likes  me.  Only  she's  lonely 
and  .  .  ." 

"  I  know,  bless  you  !  "  Cowie  said  contritely.  "  I 
wisht  I'd  a  nater  like  yours,  Dillie." 

"  Don't  be  silly,"  Drusilla  said.     "  I  thought  .  .  ." 

"  Poetry,"  Cowie  said.     "  What  did  you  think  ?  " 

"  I  thought  I'd  just  go  to  this  meeting  of  the  Eire, 
or  to  the  next,  and  tell  Grace  Morland,  and  the  rest 
of  them,  I'm  not  going  to  go  any  more." 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  261 

"  Funny  notion,  going  to  tell  them  you're  not 
going,"  Cowie  chaffed.  "  Why  shouldn't  you  go  ?  " 
he  went  on  argumentatively.  "  There's  no  two 
doubts  you  were  in  your  element  there  ;  and  it's  a 
resource  for  you  :  it  will  keep  you  from  missing  me 
so  much  when  I'm  at  the  orchestra.  It's  whole- 
some for  husband  and  wife  to  have  some  interests 
that  are  not  quite  identical.  I  shouldn't  expect 
you  to  make  yourself  into  a  mere  reflection  of  A  lick 
Cowie.  .  .  .  Don't  let  that  fellow  Tunstall  see  you 
home." 

"  Why  shouldn't  he  ?  "  Drusilla  asked  with  a  little 
cascade  of  laughter.  She  had  not  spoken  to  Tunstall 
half  a  dozen  times,  but  she  found  him  useful  in  modi- 
fying Cowie's  tendency  to  underrate  her  attractiveness 
to  other  men.  Was  it  not  a  policy  rather  than  a 
tendency  ?  She  was  beginning  to  understand  that 
Cowie's  jealousy  must  soothe  itself  with  denials  of 
what  showed  in  other  men's  eyes.  ..."  Tunstall 
told  Kitty  Curwen  at  the  Eire  that  I  had  grown  more 
beautiful  than  ever,"  she  said  mischievously. 

"  Well,  I'm  surprised  at  him  saying  that,"  Cowie 
said,  an  uneasy  flush  in  his  cheek.  It  was  one  of  his 
likeable  characteristics  that  he  responded  so  artlessly 
to  attempts  to  annoy  him. 

"Oh,  Alick!"  Drusilla  exclaimed.  "Don't  you 
think  I'm  beautiful  ?  " 

"  Not  in  the  ordinary  sense,"  Cowie  said  evasively. 
"  Of  course  I'd  rather  have  your  face  than  the  face 
of  any  beauty  on  earth.  ...  All  I  meant  was,  I 
shouldn't  expect  a  fellow  like  Tunstall  to  admire  you 
— I'd  have  thought  he'd  go  in  for  a  style  more  brilliant 
and  striking  than  yours.  Beauty  is  largely  a  question 
of  taste.  That  is  so.  Still  there  is  a  pretty  generally 


262          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

accepted  standard  by  which  the  Man  in  the  Street 
forms  his  judgments." 

"  Mr.  Chairman  !  "  Drusilla  gibed  with  another 
little  cascade  of  laughter.  "  It's  a  wonder  you  don't 
address  me  as  '  Mr.  Chairman.' ' 

"  I  will  if  you  like,"  Cowie  said,  smiling,  as  he  began 
to  read  a  paper.  Presently  he  glanced  across  at  her 
and  saw  that  she  was  (as  he  thought)  looking  into  a 
mirror  which  hung  opposite  to  the  writing-table. 
And  he  smiled  again,  tenderly,  at  her  feminine  weak- 
ness and  his  own  comprehension  of  her  thoughts. 

"  Never  mind,  Dillie  dear,  you'll  always  seem 
prettier  than  any  one  else  to  me.  .  .  ." 

"  Ah  ?  "  Drusilla  uttered  vaguely  ;  and  he  smiled 
again,  a  little  annoyedly.  She  was  pretending  not  to 
hear  because  he  had  made  her  angry.  She  was  very 
vain  and  sensitive  to  his  criticisms. 

Drusilla  was  thinking  as  she  sat  at  the  writing-table. 
It  was  a  fortnight  since  that  evening  on  which  she 
had  met  Michael  on  the  steps  of  the  Eire  Club  rooms. 
She  had  not  meant  to  go  again  ...  it  might  be  wise, 
however,  to  go  with  Miss  Morland  to-night  and  to 
make  it  plain  that  she  was  leaving  the  club.  Alick's 
orchestra  was  a  sufficient  explanation — people  ex- 
pected married  couples  to  behave  in  a  stupid  way.  .  .  . 

There  were  only  lectures  and  the  reading  of  manu- 
scripts at  the  Eire  ;  it  was  improving  :  the  worst 
obscurantists  were  leaving  it.  Alick  could  not  go  to 
it  now  on  account  of  his  orchestra :  he  was  eager, 
since  their  marriage,  that  they  should  join  a  church  ; 
and  his  energies  would  overflow  into  the  various 
tributary  societies.  .  .  .  Well,  there  was  no  harm  in 
acknowledging  that  Alick  had  never  understood  the 
aims  of  the  Eire  Club.  He  had  said  himself  just  now 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  263 

that  it  was  right  for  husbands  and  wives  to  recognise 
differences  in  their  tastes. 

Only  lectures  and  the  reading  of  manuscripts  : 
practically  no  social  intercourse.  Tunstall  had  seen  her 
home  the  last  night,  and  would  probably  do  so  again. 
Hardly  the  touching  of  hands,  hardly  the  exchange  of 
a  glance  !  She  was  a  married  woman  ;  and  she  was 
Irish — though  her  husband  wanted  to  forget  this — 
and  in  sympathy  with  the  objects  of  the  club.  Why 
should  not  her  intellectual  life  receive  the  stimulus 
of  the  club  meetings  ? 

She  had  better  not  go.     It  would  not  be — safe. 

It  was  a  terrible  word  to  say  to  oneself :  it  implied 
a  terrible  possibility.  She  was  asleep  but  she  might 
wake,  and  already  her  sleep  was  overshadowed  by  the 
terror  of  that  awakening. 

Suppose  that  one  of  those  women  who  had  sold 
themselves  and  were  living  in  sin — the  sort  of  woman 
from  whom  Cowie  protected  her — suppose  that  such 
a  woman  woke  up  and  knew  her  life  and  could  not 
drug  herself  again  into  drowsiness  ?  It  would  make  a 
good  subject  for  a  tragedy. 

She  wondered  that  she  should  have  this  thing  in 
her  thoughts  while,  exteriorly,  everything  looked  so 
ordinary.  She  sat  at  the  fumed  oak  writing-table 
which  had  been  the  wedding  gift  of  the  Eire  Club  : 
she  wore  a  dress  which  was  a  mixture  of  old  rose  and 
grey,  and  on  her  wrist  shone  a  gold  bracelet  which 
Cowie  had  given  her.  Alick  himself  by  the  fire  lay 
back  in  an  arm-chair  which  was  a  wedding-gift ;  and 
his  slippered  feet  were  gently  kicking  the  brass  and  gun- 
metal  coal-box,  also  a  wedding-gift.  Between  Drusilla 
and  her  husband  the  tea-table  stood  :  Cowie  liked  a 
"  sitting-down  tea  "  and  the  table  was  daintily  crowded 


264          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

with  cakes  and  breads  and  preserves,  with  wedding-gift 
electro-plate,  silver,  and  linen,  and  with  a  hair-raising 
white  silk  tea-cosy,  ribbon-worked  by  Cowie's  aunt  in 
the  Hebrides.  .  .  .  The  china  cupboard  was  close  at 
hand,  with  its  supply  of  bridal  cups  and  saucers,  for 
the  bright  little  house  was  subject  to  many  callers. 

They  had  had  a  honeymoon  in  the  south  of  England, 
first  in  lodgings  in  a  red  cottage  covered  with  yellow 
roses,  then  in  a  big  white  boarding-house  staring  at 
the  sands,  then  in  London  with  Cowie's  cousins.  All 
the  time,  and  since*  their  coming  home,  there  had  been 
an  amazing  plenty  of  money.  As  many  stamps  as 
Drusilla  wanted  came  quietly  from  Cowie's  pocket : 
her  own  new  purse  was  a  strange  sight,  with  its 
twinkle  of  silver  and  gold  :  tradesmen  came  to  her 
door  and  she  bought  so  many  meats  and  vegetables 
and  cakes  that  it  was  surprising  at  the  end  of  the  week 
to  find  that  she  had  kept  well  within  the  sum  allotted 
to  her  by  Cowie,  and  to  hear  his  loving  praises  of  her 
management.  He  would  hardly  allow  her  to  spend 
her  own  pocket-money :  if  she  went  shopping  he 
insisted  on  paying  her  back  for  this  or  that  little 
article.  "  I  ought  to  have  got  it  for  you  before,"  he 
always  said.  It  seemed  to  her  that  they  were  always 
going  to  theatres,  or  picture-palaces,  or  to  "  parties  "  at 
the  houses  of  Cowie's  friends.  Their  own  house,  cared 
for  by  a  maid  who  seemed  superfluous  to  Drusilla, 
was  in  a  dazzling  state  of  cleanliness,  a  fairy-tale-like 
readiness  at  all  hours  for  the  reception  of  visitors. 

"  It  doesn't  seem  real,"  Drusilla  said  to  Essie. 
"  It's  all  like  a  dream."  Alick  certainly  pressed  the 
claims  of  his  relatives  more  urgently  than  those  of 
hers  :  but,  with  his  kindly  decency,  he  always  wel- 
comed the  Trathbyes.  It  was  disappointing  to 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  265 

Drusilla  that  the  new  house  was  not  so  useful  to  them 
as  she  had  hoped  that  it  would  be :  they  showed  a 
disposition  to  resent  the  new  furniture  and  dresses, 
the  troops  of  Cowies  and  Cowies'  friends.  "  I  don't 
go  where  I'm  not  wanted,"  Aunt  Caroline  said. 

A  bright  little  flat  with  a  handsome  young  couple 
in  it  !  The  scenery  of  the  dream  was  commonplace, 
and  so  perhaps  were  the  incidents.  In  the  mornings, 
when  Drusilla  was  helping  the  maid,  the  flat  was  often 
full  of  sunshine  ;  and  she  used  to  pause  at  her  open 
windows  full  of  greenery  to  listen  to  the  Frenchwoman 
who  lived  above  singing  to  her  baby.  Drusilla  did  a 
good  deal  of  dressmaking  and  was  having  music 
lessons  ;  and  these,  with  the  preparing  of  dinner, 
filled  the  morning  hours  and  often  the  greater  part  of 
the  afternoon.  But  she  went  out  regularly,  for  Cowie 
was  exigent  about  her  health.  In  all  her  comings 
and  goings,  her  uprisings  and  down-lyings,  she  was 
lapped  about  with  his  love  and  care,  his  praises  and 
censures,  his  restrictions  and  jealousies.  .  .  .  How 
could  the  dream  be  called  an  ugly  one  ? 

Only  the  awakening  had  the  power  of  giving  this 
dream  a  hideous  significance.  And  since  she  had 
seen  Michael  Quentin  on  the  steps  of  the  Eire  Club 
rooms  she  had  known  that  there  was  a  danger  that 
she  might  awake.  .  .  .  The  knowledge  had  already 
troubled  her  dreaming,  which  showed  broken,  fan- 
tastic, faintly  coloured. 

"  Well,  I'll  go  to-night,"  Drusilla  said,  rising. 
"  But  what  am  I  to  do  if  Tunstall  insists  ?  " 

She  rang  for  tea.  It  was  one  of  the  interesting 
things  in  the  dream  that  she  could  ring  to  summon  a 
maid  ;  and  another  was  that,  by  raising  or  lowering  a 
pin,  she  could  flood  her  rooms  with  light  or  darkness. 


266          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

VIII 

Cowie's  jealousy  troubled  him  so  much  during  the 
orchestra  practice  that  at  half-past  nine  he  rose, 
resolved  that  he  would  go  to  the  Eire  and  escort 
Drusilla  home. 

"  Going,  Alick  ?  "  the  conductor  said  in  disgust. 
"  Augh,  that's  no  a  way  to  do  !  A  nice  show  we'll 
make  on  the  night  of  wer  concert  if  this  is  all  the 
enthusiasm  we  can  get  up  among  us " 

"  Oh,  cheese  it !  "  Cowie  said,  and  smiled  at  the 
appreciative  laughter  of  the  other  members.  "  You 
know  that  nobody  can  be  more  depended  on  than  I 
to  do  my  best  for  the  band,"  he  added  solemnly. 
"  If  regularity  of  attendance  is  any  criterion,  I  may 
claim,  I  believe,  to  be  as  enthusiastic  as  any  one  here. 
.  .  .  But  I've  an  engagement." 

"  Don't  you  know  the  poor  chap's  married  ?  "  the 
French  horn  said.  The  young  men  in  the  orchestra 
were  mostly  friends  of  Cowie,  had  stood  chatting 
at  street  corners  with  him,  been  his  companions 
at  football  matches  and  in  long  country  walks  on 
Sundays. 

"  Ay — we  must  make  allowances,"  the  conductor 
said  ;  and  Cowie,  laughing  and  blushing,  ran  down- 
stairs, a  little  shamefaced  at  his  own  uneasiness. 
He  allowed  to  himself  that  he  was  leaving  early 
partly  because  he  had  ruffled  Dillie  a  little  at  tea  time. 
Of  course  he  had  been  sincere  in  what  he  had  said 
about  her  beauty  !  She  was  ridiculously — adorably — 
vain  ;  and  it  was  absurd  to  consider  herself  fair  in  all 
men's  eyes. 

The  town  was  crowded,  the  cars  singularly  un- 
suitable. When  Cowie  escaped  from  out  of  the  bright 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  267 

tangle  of  lights  and  noises  into  the  dimness  of  Burke 
Place,  he  found  that  the  meeting  was  over.  The 
figures  of  the  black-dressed  woman  and  her  stout 
companion  were  visible  to  him,  on  the  far  side  of  the 
place,  and  their  voices  came  to  him  : 

"...  Fed  up  wi'  that.  Agh,  folks  want  some- 
thing a  bit  livelier  .  .  .  ask  Mr.  Tunstall  to  propose 
to  the  committee  they  should  get  Dr.  Cowie  to  give 
us  a  paper." 

"  On  '  Humour  '  ?  Oh,  the  very  thing  .  .  .  nothing 
but  empty  benches  if  yon's  to  go  on." 

"  Isn't  it  awful  about  Patullo  ?  .  .  .  Agh,  anybody 
but  him  'ud  'ave  known.  You  can't  .  .  ." 

"  Cure  it."  Cowie  fancied  rather  than  heard  the 
last  words  as  the  women  rounded  a  corner.  He  was 
keenly  interested  in  local  gossip  and  regretted  that 
he  was  not  with  the  women  to  question  them  about 
Patullo.  So  the  old  fellow  was  back  at  his  old  games  ! 
But  Cowie's  grimness  was  touched  by  a  compassion 
that  would  not  have  lighted  it  a  few  months  ago. 
He  felt  subconsciously  sorry  for  every  one  who  was 
not  young  and  healthy  and  good-looking  and  newly 
married  to  Drusilla. 

There  was  a  quick  light  step  on  the  pavement 
behind  him. 

"  Good  evening,  Dr.  Cowie,"  Michael  Quentin  said 
with  that  recently  acquired  calmness  of  his. 

Cowie  greeted  him  with  an  eagerness  which  owed 
something  to  that  same  subconscious  sense  of  his  own 
unequalled  good  fortune.  He  felt  faintly  sorry  for 
Michael  and  faintly  ashamed  of  his  own  little  triumphs 
at  the  Eire. 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  Mr.  Quentin.  How's  the  club 
getting  on  ?  " 


268          THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Michael  would  have  passed  away  from  him  after 
a  few  questions  and  answers  and  a  few  words 
of  courteous  congratulation,  but  Cowie  kept  by  his 
side. 

"  I  came  up  to  look  for  my  wife,  but  I'm  afraid 
I've  missed  her." 

Michael  explained  that  he  did  not  know  exactly 
when  Drusilla  left  the  rooms,  nor  with  whom  :  they 
debouched  into  the  clangour  and  the  web  of  lights  of 
a  thoroughfare  ;  and  suddenly  Racie  Moore  ran  past 
them. 

"  Accident,"  Racie  panted.  "  Car  ran  off  and  into 
another." 

"  Any  one  hurt  ?  "  Michael  asked. 

"  Lady  killed,  they  say,"  Racie  said,  and  ran  on. 

"  These  newspapers  dehumanise  people  .  .  . " 
Michael  was  beginning  :  he  stopped  at  the  sight  of 
Cowie's  white  face. 

"  I  heard  some  one  say  just  now  it  was  a  car  going 
south,"  Cowie  said,  and  began  to  walk  hurriedly. 

Michael  had  no  such  fear  :  rather,  he  was  convinced 
that,  if  any  accident  happened  to  Drusilla,  he  would 
at  once  know  of  it.  He  believed  this  in  spite  of  the 
proofs  that  he  had  had  that  silence  and  distance 
could  build  up  lying  barriers  between  them — that  they 
were  as  piteously  at  the  mercy  of  material  things  as 
were  the  rest  of  mankind.  He  believed  it  as  lovers 
believe  with  a  certainty  of  knowledge  that  flouts 
experience  and  ignores  reason. 

Cowie  began  to  run,  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of  his 
overcoat,  his  bowler  hat  on  the  back  of  his  head. 
Michael,  running  too,  was  thinking  Cowie's  thoughts 
and  sharing  his  feelings.  One  of  his  exalted  moods 
had  come  to  Michael  :  he  had  risen  beyond  the  limits 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  269 

of  his  own  personality  and  that  of  his  companion  : 
he  had  attained  to  that  perfect  sympathetic  insight 
for  which  he  had  prayed.  Just  now  Alexander 
Cowie's  love  and  anxiety  were  engrossing  things, 
demanding  the  attention  of  God  and  man. 

"  I  wasn't  quite  kind  to  her  this  afternoon,"  Cowie 
confessed,  as  if  to  propitiate  fate. 

When  they  reached  the  scene  of  the  accident  they 
saw  that  the  long  procession  of  lighted  and  coloured 
cars  was  slowly  moving  on.  They  were  told  that  one 
elderly  lady  had  been  killed  and  two  young  ladies, 
hurt,  had  been  carried  to  the  Royal  Infirmary. 
Racie  Moore,  about  to  dash  off  to  the  office  of  The 
Mercury,  stopped  with  reassuring  descriptions  of  the 
injured. 

"  Then  where  is  she  ?  "  Cowie  said  with  a  con- 
tentious air. 

"  Better  take  a  southern  car  home  and  see," 
Racie  suggested,  with  his  nearest  approach  to  a  laugh. 

Michael  went  with  Cowie  to  the  new  tenement  in 
the  muddy  new  road.  They  entered  the  close,  prettily 
tiled  with  new  "  art  "  tiles,  heliotrope  and  green  ; 
brightly  lighted  with  an  electric  lamp. 

"  Why,  there  she  is  !  "  Cowie  exclaimed,  dart- 
ing in. 

Drusilla  in  her  violet  costume,  her  black  velvet  cap, 
muff,  and  stole,  stood  at  the  door  :  she  looked  tired 
and  cold. 

"  Tunstall  took  me  and  the  Curwens  home  in  his 
motor,"  she  explained.  "  I've  just  got  back.  .  .  . 
You  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  " 

Mind  !     Cowie  must  clasp  her  tightly  for  a  moment. 

"  Quentin's  there,"  he  said  apologetically.  "  I 
thought  you  were  in  that  accident."  .  .  . 


270          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

He  felt  Drusilla  tear  herself  from  his  arms. 

"  Let  me  go,"  she  said  with  a  hushed  violence. 
For  the  moment  he  felt  resentment,  then  he  exulted 
in  her  delicacy. 

Michael  had  gone  to  the  opening  of  the  close,  and 
Cowie  followed  him  and  asked  him  to  come  in. 

"  I — I  will,"  Michael  said  after  a  long  pause. 
Cowie  was  amused  by  the  hesitation,  the  stammer,  the 
awkwardness.  Queer  chap  .  .  .  poor  chap  !  Cowie 
felt  rather  sorry  for  Michael  Quentin.  .  .  . 

Michael  entered  the  little  parlour,  bright  with 
electric  light  and  wedding-gifts,  and  sat  down  to 
supper  at  Cowie's  table. 

IX 

From  The  Corner  House,  through  the  trees  in  their 
November  bareness,  the  sea  could  be  seen  :  sunlit, 
riotous,  foaming,  peacock-blue  streaked  with  viridian 
green,  against  a  curving  strip  of  blond  sand.  The 
range  of  dimpled  hills  inland  beyond  Fauldstane  were 
capped  with  blue-white  snow  ;  and  their  slopes,  of 
the  golden-green  of  withered  grass,  glistened  in  the 
sunshine. 

Michael,  who  had  been  walking  about  since  early 
in  the  morning,  came  into  the  house  at  noon.  The 
rooms  glowed  with  colour  and  light  and  in  the  orange- 
and-white  dining-room  the  table  was  set.  Michael 
said  that  he  did  not  want  luncheon  till  one  ;  and 
Mattie,  contemptuous,  replaced  the  frugal  dishes  in 
the  oven. 

"  Cookannousekeeper  here  doesn't  mean  much  but 
just  housekeeper,"  Mattie  said.  "  There's  no  support 
in  these  rubbish  he  eats  now.  I  wonder  it  doesn't 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  271 

make  him  hungry  to  smell  the  good  butcher-meat 
cooking  for  us.  ...  But  you  can't  smell  anything  in 
this  house,  it's  built  such  a  funny  way.  The  smells 
don't  seem  to  hang  in  it  the  way  they  ought." 

"  He  looks  all  right,"  the  housemaid  said,  glancing 
up  from  a  "  Pansy  Novel."  "  And  he  eats  all  right. 
He's  thin,  but  he's  such  a  nice  fresh  colour." 

'  Well,  anybody  'ud  have  a  colour  rushing  about  in 
that  wind  all  day,"  Mattie  said.  .  .  .  "  It's  a  kind  of 
emptiness  there's  in  his  life,  I'm  thinking.  My,  any 
young  man  with  his  money  might  do  such  a  lot  of 
good  on  the  committees  of  societies  for  helping  folks." 

"  It's  a  wonder  he  doesn't  get  married,"  the  house- 
maid said  thoughtfully.  ..."  Everybody  wouldn't 
please  him,  I  suppose  .  .  .  and  he'll  not  be  able  to  get 
quit  of  the  thought  of  the  dead  young  lady.  Poor 
soul  !  There  he  is  going  up  the  stairs  now." 

"  It's  all  rubbish  you're  thinking  about  the  young 
lady,"  Mattie  said,  with  a  laugh.  "  You're  that 
sentimental.  He  just  goes  in  there  to  read.  My, 
it  would  be  the  making  of  him  if  he'd  the  gumption  to 
fall  in  love  with  a  woman." 

The  sun  was  right  above  in  a  hollow  inlaid  with 
masses  of  gold-white  clouds  ;  and  the  ulterior  of  the 
white  studio,  with  no  curtains  dropped  within  its 
dome  of  glass,  was  of  an  almost  intolerable  radiance. 
The  white  walls,  the  white  floor  and  furniture  seemed 
to  quiver  :  a  little  lump  of  clay  from  a  boot,  a  fallen 
petal,  would  have  been  weighed  upon  by  the  full  load 
of  that  cataract  of  light  falling  sheer  from  the  height 
of  heaven  and  flooding  the  level  of  the  floor.  There 
was  not  a  stray  flower-petal,  not  a  morsel  of  clay, 
not  a  cylinder  of  dust :  the  radiance,  hungry  for  a 
break  in  the  colourlessness,  seized  on  the  crimsons 


272          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

and  carmines  and  pinks  of  the  mass  of  roses  on  the 
white  and  silver  inlaid  table  :  and  searched  out  every 
detail  of  the  rood  with  its  black  cross  and  the  flaccid 
figure  slung  upon  it. 

So,  in  the  awful  brightness,  Michael's  tortured  heart 
lay  before  God  ;  and  his  lips  tried  to  say  as  those 
divine  lips  had  said  :  "  Not  my  will  be  done— but 
God's." 

This  archetype  of  man  had  suffered  for  the  sake  of 
his  fellow-men.  Recognising  that  life  is  a  perpetual 
strife  in  which  each  man  must  be  the  conqueror  or  the 
conquered  he  had  renounced  the  baseness  of  success. 
His  image  hung  there  proud,  triumphant,  scornful, 
an  eternal  reality.  His  great  struggle  was  being 
repeated  on  a  lesser  scale  in  the  life  of  every  human 
being. 

To  suffer — or  to  let  another  man  suffer  ?  .  .  . 
Michael  could  no  longer  consider  Cowie  superficially 
as  a  bounder,  a  Glasgow  dandy,  full  of  jests,  of  tags, 
of  popular  songs,  of  football  enthusiasm.  It  was  not 
possible  even  to  think  of  Cowie  as  the  phantom  cham- 
pion of  all  the  smoke-like  shapes  of  materialism  as 
opposed  to  the  shining  verities  of  faith.  The  struggle 
between  him  and  Cowie  was  no  longer  the  conflict  of 
ideas  :  it  was  no  longer  a  wide,  vaguely  seen  battle 
of  mustering  legions  and  flaunting  banners.  .  .  .  The 
lists  must  be  narrow  now  :  the  fight  must  be  fierce  : 
the  two  combatants,  alone,  must  meet  eye  to  eye,  for 
life  or  for  death.  It  was  the  old  struggle  between 
two  men  for  a  woman's  love. 

Strange  how  it  sucked  in  and  held  all  the  meanings 
of  all  things  past  and  hereafter  to  come.  All  of  a 
man's  strength,  all  of  his  knowledge,  all  of  his  loves, 
all  of  his  faith  !  Everything  that  a  man  knew  of  God 


THE   WHITE   STUDIO  278 

seemed  hardly  enough  to  help  him  now  ;  everything 
of  patience  that  the  saints  had  won  for  their  fellows 
by  batterings  at  the  doors  of  heaven  ;  everything  of 
wisdom  for  which  students  had  watched  and  waited. 

"  Centripetal !  "  Michael  said  to  himself  and  smiled. 

Cowie  loved  her ;  and,  while  it  still  seemed  in- 
credible to  him  that  she  should  love  Cowie,  in  the  full 
sense,  Michael  could  see  now  that  Cowie  was  not 
unworthy  of  being  loved.  His  soul  was  at  a  much 
lower  stage  of  development :  hers  must  always  stoop 
to  its  unconscious  aspirations  :  but  for  this  very 
reason  was  she  not  precious  to  Cowie  ?  He  needed 
her,  he  himself  did  not  know  how  much,  nor  why. 
In  this  ministry  her  own  soul  might  reach  its  highest 
development :  she  might  come  to  love  her  husband 
with  a  great  love,  tender,  such  as  a  mother  feels  for  a 
child,  or  a  human  for  an  animal.  .  .  .  And  she  was 
bound  to  Cowie  by  promises  spoken  in  God's  name. 
She  had  taken  his  happy,  contented,  unaspiring  life 
into  her  hands  and  warmed  it  and  made  it  tremble, 
so  that  it  could  never  again  be  quite  untroubled. 
She  had  no  right  to  lay  it  down  :  the  very  things  that 
Cowie  lacked,  his  unlikenesses  to  her,  were  the  fibres 
of  his  claim  upon  her.  .  .  . 

Did  she  love  Michael  ?  Oh,  yes — yes  !  God  knew 
she  did  even  if  she  did  not  know  it  herself.  But  the 
whiteness  of  love  must  not  be  fouled  by  cruelty  to 
another  man.  Let  her  love  stay  hidden  in  the  holy 
place  of  her  innermost  heart :  let  God  know  it  and 
bless  it :  let  it  wait  till  the  barriers  of  sense  were  down 
and  their  two  souls  met,  in  the  full  light,  on  a  higher 
plane — their  two  real  selves  who  belonged  to  each 
other.  Here  on  the  physical  plane,  she  was  weak : 
she  was  blinded,  enfeebled,  weighed  upon  by  material 

s 


274          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

things.  She  had  yielded,  he  did  not  know  why ; 
perhaps  to  a  false  standard  of  duty  to  her  family, 
perhaps  to  a  call  to  her  senses.  She  had  yielded,  it 
did  not  matter  how  nor  why.  The  soul  that  he  loved 
was  eternal  and  unyielding :  what  did  her  body 
matter  to  him  ?  .  .  . 

Michael  dropped  on  his  knees,  burying  his  face  in 
the  roses,  vivid,  wet,  with  here  and  there  specklings 
of  wet  clay.  .  .  .  The  scent  of  her  hair,  the  gleams 
and  glooms  in  it,  the  colour  of  her  cheeks  flooding  into 
the  whiteness  of  her  temples,  the  warm  half-hidden 
neck,  the  bright  mouth  ! 

He  prayed  that  he  might  be  given  strength  to  endure 
anything  rather  than  to  hurt  a  fellow-man  ;  and  that 
the  woman  whom  he  loved  might  be  kept  from  sin. 
He  was  afraid  of  himself.  .  .  . 

With  God  all  things  were  possible.  .  .  . 

"  He's  come  down,"  Mattie  said  ;  "  and  he  says 
he'll  have  a  cup  of  tea.  I'm  glad  he's  given  in,  for 
he's  given  up  tea  ever  since  he  came  home.  He's 
looking  tired.  You  can't  live  without  tea.  There's 
no  sense  in  folks  setting  theirselves  things  to  do  that 
they  know  are  impossible." 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 


ON  an  evening  near  the  beginning  of  February, 
Michael  and  Brasilia  crossed  Burke  Place  in  a  flutter 
of  fine  snow.  The  flakes,  enlarging,  melted  on  their 
warm  faces  and  congregated  in  white  smears  on  their 
unsheltered  heads  and  shoulders.  An  empty  taxi-cab 
purred  past  them. 

"  Let's — excuse  me,"  Michael  uttered.  Charac- 
teristically he  had  let  the  cab  run  past  before  he  hailed 
it.  It  pulled  up  and  the  driver  leaned  down,  his 
coat-collar  edge  pressing  into  his  red  cheek. 

"  Fifteen  Ainslie  Street,  please,"  Michael  said. 

The  flakes  came  no  longer  in  a  flutter,  but  in  a 
whirl ;  and  over  the  city  there  was  that  hush  that 
snow  weather  brings. 

"  Snow  always  makes  you  feel  very  young,  doesn't 
it  ?  "  Drusilla  said.  "  It  always  brings  me  back  to 
Hans  Andersen. — Kay  and  Gerda,  you  know,  and  the 
roses,  and  the  Snow  Queen  coming  on  her  sled.  It's 
the  most  wonderful  wintry  thing." 

"  Yes,"  Michael  said.  "  Fairy-tales  are  always  so 
awfully  true.  That's  why  I  wonder  that  people  can 
be  bothered  reading  other  things." 

Cowie  was  ashamed  of  Drusilla  if  she  read  fairy 
and  ghost  stories  :  he  resented  it  as  an  affectation  of 
childishness  unbecoming  in  a  fine  intelligent  married 
woman. 

"  I  knew  you  were  fond  of  it,"  Drusilla  said  to 

275 


276          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

Michael.  "  It's  the  loveliest  thing.  And  the 
end  .  .  ." 

Suddenly  Michael  put  his  arm  round  her.  They 
sat,  close  together,  warm,  in  a  certain  safe  happiness. 

The  cab  crossed  Jamaica  Bridge  and  they  saw, 
dimly,  on  their  left,  lights  spangling  the  river,  the  long 
indigo  mass  of  Carlton  Place  and  the  delicate  spire  of 
Gorbals  Church.  They  thought  of  the  bridge  and  the 
wharves  in  the  day-time  with  the  facing  crowds 
struggling  northwards  and  southwards,  with  the  over- 
loaded horses  struggling  up  the  paved  slopes  from  the 
piers.  .  .  .  Night  and  the  snow  had  taken  it  all  and 
made  it  beautiful :  as  Love  had  taken  all  the  world. 
Even  the  tenements  were  looming  blue-black  palaces 
with  tinsel  windows  and  walls  that  mounted  into 
mystery.  The  electric  cars  rushed  by,  coloured, 
radiant,  triumphant,  humming  the  burden  to  a  great 
song.  They  were  alive  in  a  fairy-tale  which  ignored 
painful  standards  of  right  and  wrong. 

"  I'm  glad  it's  a  taxi-cab,"  Drusilla  said. 

"  Yes,"  Michael  said.  "  It  can't  be  cruel  to  keep 
the  electricity  out  late."  He  laughed  his  high-pitched 
gleeful  laugh.  "  I  always  use  taxis,"  he  went  on, 
grave.  "  I'd  be  glad  to  see  no  horses  in  the  streets 
.  .  .  and  fewer  people — far  fewer ;  and  all  of  them 
handsome  and  straight  with  clear  skins  and  well- 
shaped  heads." 

"  People  must  be  meant  to  be  like  that,"  Drusilla 
said.  "  Everything  must  be  meant  to  be  all  right. 
They  must  be  meant  to  be  happy — not  to  bother 
about  being  good." 

They  passed  a  place  where  road-menders  were  at 
work  and  the  interior  of  the  carriage  was  lit  by  the 
golden  flare  of  naphtha  torch-lights  spouting  from 


THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          277 

their  tall  posts.  Brasilia's  face  showed,  paled  a  little, 
the  cheeks  slightly  hollowed  and  the  eyes  widened  by 
the  stress  of  emotion.  She  looked  as  she  had  looked 
that  day  in  the  park — childish,  touchingly  sensitive 
and  responsive,  expectant.  Michael  had  compared 
her  then  to  a  rose-embowered  princess  hearing, 
without  certainty,  beyond  the  confines  of  her  garden, 
the  first  bugle-call.  .  .  . 

As  the  cab  ran  again  into  duskiness,  Michael  bent 
more  nearly  over  her  and  kissed  her  temple.  She 
quickly  raised  her  face  and  her  lips  answered  his 
fervently. 

She  had  awakened.  But  the  fear  of  awakening  had 
been  a  madness,  one  of  the  mockeries  of  broken  and 
evil  dreams.  Love  was  a  great  peace :  it  came 
bringing  the  irresponsibility  of  a  saint  who  has  been 
lifted  into  ecstasy,  of  a  child  knowing  neither  good 
nor  evil.  Marriage  had  made  her  feel  horribly  old  : 
but  Love  flung  aside  the  solemn  frivolities  of  customs 
and  duties  and  romped  rapturously  with  the  eternal 
young  soul  within.  She  felt  as  if  the  struggle  were 
over  :  nothing  else  mattered  :  there  were  no  doubts, 
no  questions,  no  marvellings.  She  knew  that  Love 
transcended  all  laws. 

"  When  will  I  see  you  again  ? "  Michael  said, 
smiling,  at  the  door  in  Ainslie  Street. 

"  I'll  come  next  night,"  Drusilla  said,  and  went  in. 
She  realised  that  she  had  not  confessed  anything, 
had  not  explained  anything :  nothing  seemed  to 
demand  confession  or  explanation.  The  only  thing 
that  mattered  was  to  sit  beside  Michael  and  to  feel 
his  lips  meet  hers.  Eternity  could  give  nothing 
better,  nothing  more  near  to  the  still  glory  that  was 
the  heart  of  heaven. 


278          THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

II 

She  had  gone  to  all  the  meetings  of  the  Eire  Club 
since  October.  She  had  not  a  clear  recollection  of 
how  Tunstall  had  stopped  seeing  her  home  and  Michael 
had  taken  his  place. 

In  both  of  their  hearts  now  all  the  life  converged 
towards  those  few  hours  ;  especially  towards  that 
night  hour  of  home-coming.  Michael  did  not  know 
how  to  be  furtive  :  he  would  have  said  to  himself 
wildly  that  there  was  nothing  to  cause  scandal.  He 
loved  Drusilla  and  she  loved  him  ;  purely,  patiently, 
steadfastly :  they  were  not  going  to  do  any  wrong  to 
themselves  or  to  Cowie.  .  .  .  Sometimes,  in  their 
eagerness,  they  left  the  club  early,  so  that  they  might 
have  a  longer  time  together  :  sometimes,  on  reaching 
Ainslie  Street,  they  walked  away  past  Cowie's  house. 
A  cold  supper  was  always  set  on  Thursday  nights  and 
Alick,  if  he  came  in  before  Drusilla,  would  be  quite 
comfortable.  .  .  . 

Michael  was  determined  not  to  wrong  Cowie.  He 
knew  that  he  loved  Drusilla  and  that  she  loved  him  : 
they  would  love  each  other  always.  .  .  .  Once  or 
twice,  suddenly  remembering  the  theory  that  the 
soul's  love  can  exist  without  physical  expression, 
Michael  had  been  about  to  part  from  her  without 
kissing  her.  But  she  clung  to  him,  lifting  her  faee. 
.  .  .  That  made  it  difficult.  Impossible,  in  fact. 

Everything  about  her  now  made  it  difficult — made  it 
impossible !  There  was  wonderfully  little  speech,  or 
need  of  speech,  between  them ;  but  she  had  told  him,  in 
fragments,  truths  about  her  life,  making  him  groan  and 
curse  his  own  blindness.  She  tried  to  be  very  honest. 

"  I  wanted  things  too — that  was  a  reason.      You 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM  279 
can't  know  how  much  I  wanted  things  ...  I  hate 
anything  ugly.  At  home  it  was  not  possible  to  keep 
oneself  really  nice.  .  .  .  Men  like  you  care  more 
about  ideas  :  they  don't  know  how  much  women 
want  things."  Her  voice  sank  shamefully.  All  these 
astonishing  piteous  little  wants,  when  he  placed  them 
side  by  side  with  her  family's  distresses,  made  her 
seem  to  him  all  the  purer,  the  sweeter  and  nobler.  He 
did  not  understand  them  at  all  as  Cowie  had  done. 

"  Yes,  I  did  !— yes,  I  did  !  I  think  I — cared  for 
you  nearly  from  the  beginning.  ...  It  doesn't 
matter  now,"  Drusilla  added  with  quivering  laughter. 

In  truth  it  did  not  seem  to  matter.  When  they 
were  together  it  was  as  if  time  were  blotted  out ;  as 
if  they  always  had  been,  and  always  would  be  so. 
Drusilla  did  not  flee  from  the  thought  of  Cowie,  nor 
suffer  much  remorse  at  knowing  that  he  came  and  went 
deceived.  His  vivid,  strong  personality  seemed  to 
have  faded  suddenly  into  a  phantom-shape  coming 
and  going. 

But  Michael  thought  of  Cowie — thought  of  him 
more  and  more  as  his  own  desires  took  more  and  more 
solid  forms  on  the  plane  on  which  Cowie  habitually 
moved.  It  was  growing  more  and  more  difficult 
not  to  want  to  take  her  away  from  Cowie — to  take 
her  in  her  wrongs  and  tendernesses  and  weaknesses  ; 
to  take  her  in  her  loveliness.  .  .  . 

He  did  want  to  take  her.  Every  time  now  that 
he  left  her  at  her  door  there  rose  up  the  intolerable 
vision  of  the  hushed  house  and  of  her  and  Cowie 
within.  Her  soul  was  his  in  love — oh,  it  was  all  very 
well  to  say  that !  He  hated  the  sacrilege  of  Cowie 
taking  in  his  arms  the  form  that  held  the  soul.  The 
owner  of  the  treasure  had  surely  a  right  to  the  casket. 


280          THE   ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

.  .  .  He  fought  with  the  thought,  but  it  sprang  up 
again  and  again,  like  an  immortal  monster. 

Oh,  God  forbid  that  he  should  destroy  the  life  of 
this  man  who  loved  her  !  God  forbid  that  he  should 
make  her  to  share  in  this  cruelty  !  .  .  .  The  struggle 
had  entered  into  the  citadel  of  his  heart  and  there 
angels  fought  with  devils.  .  .  .  He  prayed  when  he 
was  alone  that  help  might  come  "  from  the  other 
side  "  ;  that  in  some  way,  by  the  intervention  of 
powers  stronger  than  he,  the  life  of  Alexander  Cowie 
might  be  saved  from  ruin.  Sometimes  he  could  attain 
to  prayer  so  fierce,  so  importunate,  so  selfless,  that  it 
seemed  an  answer  must  come.  .  .  .  But  when  he  was 
with  Drusilla  he  knew  that  Love  could  do  no  wrong  ; 
that  Love  pronounces  absolution  of  all  ills  wrought  to 
others  for  the  sake  of  the  beloved. 


Ill 

"  There's  a  business  meeting  to-night,"  Racie  said 
sourly  to  Michael  on  the  third  of  April.  "  You'll  have 
to  be— 

Their  eyes  met  and  the  impact  struck  coldly  on 
them.  Racie's  look  said  :  "  You'd  better  not  see  her 
home  :  people  are  beginning  to  pass  remarks."  Oh, 
Michael  knew  just  the  kind  of  conventional  thought 
that  Racie  would  have.  Always  deferring  to  people's 
prejudices,  yet  feigning  contempt  of  his  kind. 

Michael  ran  out  into  Burke  Place  after  Drusilla. 
In  the  violet  sky  there  was  a  great  round  moon, 
apricot-hued,  burning,  beautiful. 

"  I'll  have  to  stay  for  that  blessed  business  meeting 
— -we'll  not  get  home  together.  .  .  .  Let  me  see  you 
to  the  car." 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          281 

"  Isn't  it  a  divine  night  ?  "  Drusilla  said  reluctantly, 
and  they  walked  slowly  round  Burke  Place  before 
they  went  to  the  car  station.  They  smiled  into  each 
other's  eyes,  joyously  excited  in  snatching  these 
moments  in  the  dark  square,  under  the  violet  sky. 
Michael  drew  her  into  the  shadow  of  a  pillared  doorway 
and  kissed  her  :  the  passion  in  his  eyes  made  her  gaze 
falter. 

"  I  love  you.  .  .  .  Say  you  love  me." 

"  Yes,"  Drusilla  said.  What  did  it  matter  if  the 
red-faced  woman  stared  at  them  as  they  went  away 
together,  or  the  lean  woman,  in  her  eternal  and  evil- 
smelling  sables,  fell  on  their  case  as  her  prey  ?  To 
Drusilla  the  lean  woman  appeared  no  longer  as  a 
horror,  a  sordid  kind  of  wolf,  worrying,  crunching, 
savouring.  She  was  now  only  an  ill-dressed  woman, 
piteous  in  having  entered  the  world  in  vain.  For  no 
man  had  loved  her  :  she  had  never  walked  in  the 
violet  solitude  with  a  man  whom  God  had  sent  with 
a  message  to  her. 

With  this  perhaps  unwarranted  conviction,  Drusilla 
was  able  quite  gently  to  move  the  images  of  these  two 
women  into  the  background  of  her  mind.  They 
mattered  no  more  than  did  her  past  miseries  and 
mistakes  and  what  evils  might  be  to  come.  She 
parted  from  Michael  at  the  car  and  he  ran  back, 
breathless,  to  the  club-rooms. 

When  he  entered,  Racie  and  Tunstall  were  seated 
at  the  green  table,  and  the  room  was  filled  with  an 
atmosphere  of  something  wrong. 

"  Mr.  TunstalFs  stayed  because  he  helped  me  a  good 
deal  with  the  club  business  while  you  were  away," 
Racie  said  in  his  quiet  voice.  "  As  you  know,  we  feel 
it's  time  we  went  into  this,  though  it's  unpleasant." 


282          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  Michael  asked  harshly  and 
quickly.  His  thoughts  had  darted  to  Drusilla  and  the 
insolent  mouth  of  the  lean  woman  in  sables  :  let  them 
take  care  what  they  said  ! 

But  he  saw  that  Racie  and  Tunstall  were  surprised 
by  his  white  face. 

"  It's  about  the — accounts,"  Racie  said  in  a  nau- 
seated tone.  "  Better  sit  down,  Mick.  The  accounts 
and  tilings.  Patullo's  not  here  of  course  :  how  many 
nights  is  it  since  he's  been  here  ?  " 

"Five  now,"  Tunstall  said.  "  No— four.  Not 
since  our  last  public  lecture." 

"  These  have  been  coming  in,"  Racie  said,  laying 
his  hand  on  a  heap  of  papers  on  the  table.  "  Some 
of  them  came  to  Mr.  Tunstall  and  some  to  me."  He 
lifted  one  of  the  bills  and  showed  it  to  Michael. 
"  You  remember,  of  course,  Mick,  Patullo  got  money 
to  pay  all  these  ?  Then,  there  were  the  ads.  of  the 
lectures  in  the  various  papers.  They  made  such  a  fuss 
about  it  at  The  Mercury  I  paid  it  myself." 

"  Of  course  !  "  Michael  said,  furious.  "  Rather 
than  apply  to  me." 

"  You  can  give  it  back  to  me,"  Racie  said,  with  his 
dry  side-glance.  "  About  the  money  taken  for  tickets 
for  the  lectures  :  we  find  none  of  it's  been  banked. 
There  isn't  a  penny  down  to  the  credit  of  the  Mission." 

"  You  didn't  say  anything  to  Miss  Morland  ?  " 
Michael  panted. 

Racie  laughed  and  an  emotional  look  warmed  his 
face. 

"  No,  I  didn't,  Mick,"  he  said.  He  and  Tunstall 
exchanged  a  quizzical  glance  :  it  was  so  characteristic 
of  Michael  Quentin  to  consider  anything  but  the 
money. 


THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          283 

"  It's  a  blue  do,"  Tunstall  said. 

"  You  mean ?  " 

"  I  mean  he's  been  robbing  you — all  along  the  line. 
The  accounts  haven't  been  kept  at  all :  we'd  no 
balance-sheet  at  the  end  of  the  year.  .  .  .  Never 
heard  of  such  a  thing.  .  .  .  But  Mr.  Moore  said  you 
said  Mr.  Patullo  wasn't  to  be  bothered.  Question  is, 
how  long's  it  to  go  on  ?  He's  drinking  himself  to 
death,  and  you've  only  been  helping  him  to  commit 
suicide." 

Tunstall's  harsh  voice  and  flushed  face  seemed 
horrible  to  Michael.  So  did  the  papers  on  the  table, 
remorseless  indelicate  things  with  their  incriminating 
dates  and  figures.  It  was  as  if  Patullo  himself  were 
laid  there,  exposed  in  all  his  misery  to  a  glare  of  light 
and  eyes  that  did  not  pity.  Michael  flushed  in  an 
anguish  of  shame. 

"  We've  written  to  him  several  times,"  Racie  said 
with  downcast  eyes.  "  He  answered  once,  as  you 
know,  after  Clancy's  lecture,  saying  he  was  coming 
along  next  night  to  square  up.  But,  as  you  know, 
he  didn't  come.  .  .  .  What  are  you  going  to 
do?" 

"  I'll  go  out  and  see  him  myself,"  Michael  said 
suddenly.  Tunstall  grinned. 

"  He'll  get  round  you,  Mr.  Quentin." 

"  I'm  quite  willing  that  he  should,"  Michael  said, 
in  an  out-flash  of  scorn.  "  I'll  go  to-night,"  he  said 
to  Racie.  "  Give  me  those  bills." 

He  crushed  them  together  and  squashed  them  into 
his  pocket.  Racie  surmised  that  he  would  lose  half 
of  them  and  forget  to  pay  the  other  half  till  they  were 
sent  again  with  threats. 

"  Never  mind,"  Michael  said  ragefully.     He  turned 


284          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

at  the  door  :  "  Mr.  Tunstall,  I  can  count  on  you  not 
to  speak  about  this  ?  " 

Tunstall  had  already  spoken  to  nearly  everybody 
in  the  club — but  what  was  the  good  of  telling  Michael 
Quentin  that  ?  Patullo  had  long  ago  been  described 
by  the  red-faced  woman  as  an  Open  Sore.  Tunstall 
acquiesced  with  a  grin  that  was  half  mocking,  half 
shame-faced ;  and  Michael  went  off.  Racie  dashed 
after  him  and  silently  accompanied  him  to  the  garage. 

"  You'd  better  ask  him  to  resign,  Mick,"  Racie  said 
gently,  as  the  car  started.  "  You  can  do  that  quite 
.  .  .  pleasantly." 

"  Yes,"  Michael  agreed.  He  was  glad  that  he  had 
five  thousand  a  year  :  certainly  it  made  it  easier  to 
set  things  right.  He  would  settle  those  bills  and  bank 
a  sum  for  the  Eire  Club  Mission.  .  .  .  His  face  had 
whitened  at  Tunstall's  cruel  description  of  his  attempt 
to  help  Patullo.  Racie  wasn't  such  a  brute  :  he  felt 
rather  grateful  to  Racie  for  being  different.  Still, 
Racie  had  been  rather  a  beast  to  him  of  late  with  those 
suspicious,  resentful  glances.  Conventional ! 

He  had  neglected  poor  old  Patullo.  Yes  ;  it  must 
have  been  this  sense  of  his  fading  interest  that  had 
prevented  Patullo  from  asking.  ...  It  was  extra- 
ordinary how  love  sucked  in  one's  energies.  He  had 
let  himself  lose  sight  of  Patullo — had  got  tired  of  the 
job.  Racie  had  the  ah-  of  believing  that  he  never 
stuck  to  anything,  that  he  always  gave  way.  A  man 
with  that  bitter  want  of  faith  in  one's  enthusiasms 
must  do  much  to  keep  the  world  from  progressing. 
He  was  always  trying  to  take  the  shine  out  of  things — 
to  blot  the  colour  and  radiance  of  life  into  a  lying 
half-light  of  grey  depressedness.  .  .  .  Poor  old  Racie  I 
He  wasn't  such  a  brute  as  the  contemptuous  Tunstall, 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          285 

not  such  a  brute  as  that  lean  woman  kite-like  in  her 
rusty  robes.  Michael  answered  their  jeering  dis- 
approval with  an  out-flare  of  scorn.  After  all,  the 
money  was  his,  he  could  do  as  he  pleased.  What  did 
it  matter  if  they  found  him  a  fool  ?  He  had  a  counter- 
charge to  fling  in  their  faces.  He  imagined  himself 
saying  to  them  : 

"  There's  nothing  more  foolish  than  to  have  no 
pity." 

He  got  down  at  Twenty-three  Lochaber  Gardens  ; 
and  as  he  stood,  pausing  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs, 
there  flashed  into  his  mind  a  vision  of  a  rose-coloured 
room. 

A  rose-coloured  room  such  as  Rollo  had  imagined. 
The  picture  of  it  came  to  Michael  fresh  and  vivid  as 
if  it  were  flashed  from  Rollo's  mind  into  his.  The 
walls  of  the  room  showed  faintly  flushed  with,  on  the 
white  frieze,  an  austere  pattern  of  thorny  branches 
such  as  diapered  the  harled  walls  of  The  Corner  House. 
In  the  centre  of  the  white  floor  there  was  a  carpet  of 
a  soft  dim  hue  between  pink  and  purple.  Precious 
vases,  filled  with  roses,  glimmered  here  and  there,  and 
a  cluster  of  shaded  lights  hung  from  the  ceiling — 
softly  green  as  Rollo  had  said  the  ceiling  of  a  sleeping- 
room  ought  to  be.  In  his  vision  of  the  room  he  saw  it 
at  night ;  and  long  silk  curtains,  embroidered  with 
rose  and  brown  and  gold,  mildly  green,  fell  over  the 
windows  and  the  doorways.  .  .  .  There  was  no  room 
for  a  crucifix  in  the  room — let  the  shuddersome,  dead 
unreal  thing  remain  in  the  white  phantom  studio 
above  !  There  was  no  room  for  prayer  nor  for  struggle  : 
none  for  pity.  Only  Love  was  there  in  a  divine 
egotism  transcending  all  laws. 

The  red-cheeked  Cartwright  boy  who  lived  below 


286          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

the  Trathbyes,  came  upstairs  whistling  and  carrying 
a  string-bag  full  of  potatoes.  He  stared  at  Michael 
standing  there,  thinking;  passed  him  and,  turning, 
stared  down  at  him  from  between  the  posts  of  the 
banisters.  The  boy's  eyes  seemed  in  danger  of 
falling  out ;  and  Michael,  haled  out  of  his  dream  into 
a  consciousness  that  was  a  mingling  of  annoyance  and 
sarcastic  amusement,  went  up  to  the  top  flat  and 
rang  Patullo's  bell. 

There  followed  that  long  pause  which  is  one  of  the 
signs  of  social  misery.  Michael  knew  that  he  would 
have  to  wait  while  Patullo  apologised  to  a  pupil,  or 
sent  the  charwoman  out  of  the  parlour,  or  put  away 
a  bottle  of  whisky.  But  he  rang  again,  partly  because 
he  was  not  patient,  and  partly  because  he  had  been 
made  nervous  by  the  boy's  goggling  eyes. 

Patullo  opened  the  door.  It  was  awful  to  bring 
that  look  of  terror  into  a  human  face.  ...  In  his 
shame  that  this  man  should  fear  him  Michael  spoke  in 
a  rush,  stammering : 

"  It's  all  right.  .  .  .  Mr.  Patullo,  may  I  come  in  ? 
I'm  awfully  sorry  I've  taken  so  long  to  come  to  look 
you  up.  .  .  .  Perhaps  you've  a  pupil  ?  " 

"  No  ;  I've  no  pupils  now,"  Patullo  said.  He  still 
held  the  door  as  if  to  keep  Michael  out. 

"  Are  you  alone  ?  "  Michael  asked,  a  new  anxiety 

besetting  him.   If  Patullo's  wife  were  there ?  Miss 

Morland  had  described  her  repeatedly  as  a  terrible 
person  with  a  shock  head  of  hair.  The  interior  of 
the  house,  behind  Patullo's  shrinking  figure,  seemed  to 
yawn  cave-like ;  and  Michael  felt  wrathfully  conscious 
of  the  cruelty  and  insolence  of  a  society  that  hunted  a 
poor  quarry  like  this  and  dug  him  out  of  his  den. 

"  It's  all  right — just  if  you're  alone,  Mr.  Patullo — 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          287 

it's  quite  all  right.  I  can  come  back  any  time  you 
like— 

"  I'm  alone,"  Patullo  said  suddenly,  with  a  swallow- 
ing movement  that  sucked  in  his  thin  discoloured 
cheeks. 

It  was  absurd  to  see  a  man  in  such  a  state  for  want 
of  a  few  pounds. 

Michael  followed  him  into  the  stuffy  flat ;  murmur- 
ing pitifully  : 

"  It's  all  right,  Mr.  Patullo.  .  .  .  I'm  going  to 
make  it  all  right.  .  .  ." 

Five  thousand  a  year.     He  felt  glad  of  it. 

IV 

"  Well,  I'm  off,  old  girl !  "  Cowie  called.  It  was 
Sunday  morning  and  he  was  going  to  church  with  his 
mother  and  sisters.  Cowie  had  recently  engaged  two 
seats  for  himself  and  his  wife. 

"  Because  I  think  we  ought  to  pay  our  way,"  he 
explained  with  his  pioneer  air,  "  I  can't  accept  the 
dogmas  of  the  Church  :  but  I  think  there's  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  for  the  fellowship  of  its  members. 
There's  no  two  doubts  it  brings  you  into  touch  with 
people.  I  don't  mean  just  in  the  matter  of  getting 
patients,"  Cowie  went  on,  with  an  attractive  laugh 
and  blush.  He  added  diffidently,  with  an  emotional 
moistening  of  his  eyes  :  "  Mother  was  talking  about  it 
the  other  evening,  Dillie,  when  you  and  Aggie  were 
washing  up  in  the  kitchen.  .  .  .  There's  a  lot  in  what 
Mother  says  sometimes  though  she's  not  intellectual 
or  littery.  .  .  .  She  was  saying  it's  others  we've  got 
to  think  of  in  a  thing  like  this  :  she  said  supposing 
we  had  youngsters  that  went  wrong  and  in  the  future 


288          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

we  felt  like  reproaching  ourselves  because  we  hadn't 
started  them  fair " 

Though  she  was  in  daily  contact  with  Alick's  view 
of  her  Drusilla  could  not  absorb  it :  the  most  she 
could  do  was  to  refrain  from  repelling  it.  Each  time 
that  he  left  her  there  was  the  sense  of  retiring  with 
her  real  self  to  resume  the  thoughts  that  his  presence 
had  interrupted.  He  and  his  hopes  and  interests 
moved  on  the  outermost  confines  of  her  life  :  he  could 
not  even  surmise  the  existence  of  an  inner  chamber  to 
which  he  had  no  key.  He  loved  her,  he  was  content. 

Drusilla,  standing  in  her  open  bay  window  where 
boxes  of  blossomed  daffodils  thrilled  in  the  April 
sunlight,  heard  all  around  her  the  clangour  of  church 
bells.  She  watered  the  flowers  slowly,  watching  the 
drops  shine  in  the  sun  ;  her  senses  taking  pleasure  in 
the  colour,  in  the  odours  of  the  damped  clay  and  the 
yellow  petals,  in  the  bright  Sunday  atmosphere  of 
the  street.  Between  the  waves  of  the  bells'  sounds 
she  could  hear  the  scurr  of  feet  on  the  footpaths,  the 
squawking  of  a  gramophone  in  one  of  the  neighbouring 
flats,  and  the  intense  "  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick "  of 
a  motor-cycle  round  the  corner. 

The  bells  stopped.  The  young  Frenchwoman  from 
the  flat  above  came  downstairs,  issued  from  the  close 
wheeling  a  bassinet.  She  looked  up  at  Drusilla, 
waving  her  hand,  crying  out  that  she  and  the  baby 
were  going  to  spend  the  sunny  morning  in  the  park. 
She  wore  a  new  hat  that  was  a  mass  of  pale  and  dark 
violets. 

"  Are  you  not  come  wit  us  ?  " 

"  No,"  Drusilla  called,  smiling.  "  I  stayed  in  to 
get  Alick's  dinner." 

But  she  still  lingered,  idle,  in  the  bay-window. 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM          289 

Many  mothers  and  fathers,  wheeling  baby-carriages, 
came  from  closes  all  along  the  street ;  for  the  place 
was  full  of  young  couples.  Persons  with  dogs,  too, 
began  to  walk  about  in  the  pleasant  stillness,  and  little 
boys  and  girls  with  toy  horses  and  motors. 

Drusilla,  moving  a  little  into  the  room,  saw  herself 
reflected,  sun-bathed,  in  a  mirror — her  lovely  hair, 
her  white  neck  and  blue  Magyar  robe  inset  with 
Oriental  embroidery.  She  thought  of  her  overall 
hanging  on  the  kitchen  door,  and  of  the  red  Sunday 
joint  not  yet  in  the  oven. 

She  put  her  hand  to  the  bosom  of  her  dress.  Michael 
Quentin's  letter  was  in  there,  lying  warm  and  deeply 
hidden. 

Michael  had  written  it  from  The  Corner  House. 
He  had  gone  down  to  Ayrshire,  light-hearted,  on  the 
morning  following  his  comforting  interview  with  old 
Patullo. 

She  was  afraid.  ...  To  go  with  Michael  would  be 
like  Death — a  great  splendour  but  a  great  terror. 
It  would  mean  a  rending  and  snapping  of  all  her 
earthly  ties  ;  and  while  the  spirit  found  the  going  easy 
the  flesh  felt  shame  and  fear.  She  must  fling  away  all 
her  respect  for  custom,  for  righteousness,  and  re- 
spectability :  she  must  flout  the  vows  that  she  had 
taken  at  her  wedding  :  she  must  have  done  with  all 
her  friendships  :  she  must  give  hostages  to  the  en- 
vious ;  must  fulfil  the  grievous  prophecies  of  her 
mother  and  Aunt  Caroline  that  her  lack  of  restraint 
(where  men  were  concerned)  would  bring  disgrace  on 
them  all.  She  must  renounce  the  hope  of  finding 
lovers  for  Essie  and  Kathleen  :  she  must  creep  for  ever 
out  of  the  fond  motherly  arms  of  Mrs.  Cowie,  out  of 
Aggie's  great  hugging  hold.  .  .  .  She  must  shatter 


290          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Alick's  life  into  a  thousand  amazements  and  disgraces. 
.  .  .  He  did  not  ask  much  :  it  was  so  easy  to  content 
him  with  imitations. 

If  Michael — or  this  force  which  had  absorbed  both 
her  and  Michael — would  only  take  her — take  her, 
overwhelmed,  helpless,  blind,  deaf,  unreasoning, 
unblamed  !  It  was  outrageous,  it  was  inquisitorial, 
it  was  ludicrous,  that  she  and  he  should  have  their 
hearts  swept  through  by  this  flaming  whirlwind  while 
their  brains  were  left  clear  for  thought  and  their  feet 
and  hands  obedient  to  their  wills.  ...  Or  if  her 
dilemma  spelt  simply  this  :  on  the  one  side  her  married 
life,  on  the  other  side  Michael  Quentin,  each  eternally 
to  be  lost  or  won.  Ah,  how  easy  it  would  be  then  to 
decide  !  But  (her  timidity  argued)  to  keep  her  fair 
name  and  to  do  no  wrong  to  her  husband,  did  not  mean 
to  lose  Michael  Quentin.  He  was  hers.  Let  them 
wait — what  matter  how  long  Death  was  of  coming  ? 
She  knew  well  that  she  did  not  want  to  die — that  life 
hardly  seemed  sorrowful.  The  maidenly  romantic 
part  of  her — left  unsatisfied  by  Cowie's  eagerness  to 
matronise  her — turned  not  unwillingly  to  a  future  of 
snatched  meetings  and  subtle  communings.  .  .  . 

The  door  bell  rang — a  pneumatic  bell  with  a  start- 
ling "  birrrr ! "  The  servant  was  at  church  and 
Drusilla  went  to  the  door,  expecting  a  mistaken 
milk-boy. 

Miss  Morland  was  at  the  door. 
"  Can  I  come  in  ?  ...  Have  you  heard  ?  " 
"  No  :  what's  wrong  ?  "  Drusilla  said.     "  Come  in." 
They  went  into  the  parlour  and  Miss  Morland  looked 
round  it  as  her  habit  was  on  entering  a  room.  Drusilla 
ran  into  the  kitchen  to  put  the  meat  into  the  gas- oven, 
then  returned,  pink-cheeked  in  her  blue  robe. 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM          291 

"  Mr.  Patullo's  dead,"  Grace  said.  She  looked  so 
ghastly  that  Drusilla  did  not  attempt  to  exclaim  or 
pity  :  she  waited  for  what  was  to  come,  watching 
Grace  undo  her  black  bearskin  stole,  which  she  had 
evidently  put  on  hurriedly  over  a  meagre  stained 
house-frock. 

"  Ah  ...  I  thought  you  might  know.  Your 
mother  heard  it." 

"Heard ?" 

"  The  shot,"  Grace  said.     "  He  shot  himself." 

"Oh  ...  Grace  !    The  poor  man  .  .  ." 

Grace  looked  with  a  kind  of  pleased  interest  at 
Drusilla's  tears  :  there  was  expressed  in  the  glance 
something  of  a  dramatic  artist's  gratitude  to  a 
comprehending  house. 

"  I  don't  know  how  much  you  know,"  Grace  said. 
"  I  wonder  if  you  guessed  anything.  .  .  .  Nobody  did, 
I  think.  I'm  not  the  kind  of  person  people  talk  about, 
and  then  I  was  so  popular  at  the  Eire.  .  .  .  And  of 
course  it  seemed  unlikely,  he  was  so  much  older.  .  .  . 
It's  very  nice  in  here,  but  it's  jolly  cold." 

Drusilla  shut  the  windows.  Grace  was  bending 
over  the  fire,  newly  lit  and  crackling.  The  sunlight, 
touching  her  sideways,  showed  the  lined  flaccid  face, 
the  blighted  hair  on  her  temples. 

"I  loved  him,  "Grace  said  desperately.  .  .  .  "There 
was  never  anything  wrong  between  us.  .  .  .  When 
I  went  to  him  in  the  old  days  I  knew  I  should  love 
him.  There  was  always  a  strong  sympathy  between 
us  :  we  had  such  a  lot  of  things  in  common.  It  was 
quite  a  psychic  thing  from  the  first.  ...  I  saw  from 
the  first  he  was  wretched  with  that  woman  :  she  was 
of  quite  a  different  class,  uneducated  and  all  that, 
you  know — used  to  come  into  the  room  in  a  petticoat 


292          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

or  with  a  lump  of  something  in  her  mouth,  you  know. 
.  .  .  She  was  most  frightfully  jealous." 

"  Of  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  yes,"  Miss  Morland  said,  complacent. 
She  fell  into  a  muse,  staring  in  front  of  her  with  her 
fine  eyes,  blank  like  the  eyes  of  a  sick  animal.  .  .  . 
"  I  declare  it's  so  strange  to  think  of  him  lying  dead 
there.  Your  mother  heard  the  shot." 

"  I  know— you  said  that.    Why  did  he ?  " 

"  Oh,  he  left  such  a  pathetic  letter  :  so  awfully 
pathetic.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Ross — that's  his  charwoman — 
came  to  look  for  me  this  morning  :  she  knew  we  were 
such  friends.  She  went  hi  to  get  his  breakfast  for 
him  as  usual  .  .  .  and  she  found  him  .  .  .  lying  over 
the  table  with  the  pistol  in  his  poor  hand." 

"  Oh — Grace  !  .  .  .  "  Drusilla  said,  sobbing. 

"  He'd  left  a  letter  for  Mick  Quentin,"  Grace  said. 
"  I  took  it  round  to  Mick's  lodgings  but  he  wasn't  there 
— he's  in  Ayrshire.  I  opened  the  letter — I  know 
Mick  won't  mind,  he  and  I  are  such  chums.  See, 
here  it  is." 

Drusilla,  shudderingly,  saw  that  a  corner  of  the 
envelope  was  dimpled  where  a  drop  of  Patullo's  blood 
had  fallen  on  it. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  look  at  it — I  don't  want  to  read  it — 
I  don't  think  I  should." 

"  Of  course  you're  not  so  intimate  with  Mick," 
Miss  Morland  said  absently,  and  again  sat  gazing  in 
front  of  her.  ..."  Mr.  Patullo  had  got  the  club 
money  all  wrong,  and  it  couldn't  be  concealed  any 
longer.  Mick  had  gone  to  him  some  days  before  and 
been  nice  to  him — said  he'd  hush  it  all  up  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing,  you  know.  .  .  .  Mr.  Patullo  says  in  the 
letter  he  could  have  borne  being  imprisoned,  but  he 


THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          293 

couldn't  bear  Mick  finding  it  out  and  being  so  kind 
to  him.  He  said  the  shame  of  having  failed  after 
what  Mick  had  done  for  him  was  simply  eating  into 
him  ;  and  he  brooded  over  it  and  brooded  over  it 
and  ...  " 

"  He  was  awfully  sensitive,"  Drusilla  said  pitifully. 

"  Rather  1  Why,  my  dear  child,  you  don't  know," 
Grace  said  with  a  kind  of  anger.  "  Nobody  but  I 
knows  what  that  man  has  had  to  suffer.  .  .  .  That 
woman  was  simply  awful.  .  .  .  You  know  she  killed 
all  his  children — well,  it's  the  same  thing,  she  let  them 
die  of  neglect.  He'd  have  been  a  most  devoted  father 
if  he'd  had  a  chance.  .  .  .  Why,  she  followed  him 
about  from  place  to  place  and  disgraced  him  before 
people.  ...  I  say,  did  you  ever  see  her  ?  " 

"  Of  course  not,"  Drusilla  said.  "  Don't  talk 
about  her.  .  .  .  Tell  me  about  you  and  him.  I  want 
to  know." 

"  We  never  did  anything  wrong,"  Miss  Morland 
said.  "  I  waited.  I  don't  pretend  I  didn't  hope  she 
would  die — she  was  lower  than  a  beast.  Why 
shouldn't  I  wish  it  ?  "  Grace's  voice  coarsened  as 
Drusilla  had  noticed  it  did  when  expressive  of  strong 
emotion  :  she  seemed  suddenly  to  shake  herself  free 
of  reserves  and  pretences  :  her  speech,  her  gestures, 
and  appearance  were  those  of  a  woman  of  the  people, 
and  with  her  sincerity  came  a  sort  of  grandeur.  She 
had  risen  and  stood  now  erect,  now  bending  with  her 
arms  on  the  back  of  a  chair  ;  not  shedding  tears,  but 
every  now  and  then  wiping  her  lips  with  a  crumpled 
handkerchief.  The  very  dishevelment  of  her  dress, 
the  neglected  greyed  hair,  contributed  curiously  to 
giving  her  a  sort  of  majesty.  Daintinesses  would  have 
been  as  much  out  of  place  on  her  as  on  a  big-framed 


294          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

statue  moulded  by  a  realistic  artist  to  express  plebeian 
sorrow.  Drusilla,  listening  in  a  vivid  excitement  to 
the  broken  misery-weighted  fragments  of  her  talk, 
visualised  the  scenes  of  the  drama.  She  saw  Miss 
Morland's  bedroom  in  the  big  respectable  west -end 
house,  dark  even  on  such  a  sunny  morning  ;  saw  the 
streets,  almost  empty,  through  which  Grace  hurried 
with  the  charwoman  ;  saw  Patullo's  parlour  and  felt 
its  heavy  sour  odours  of  tobacco,  of  whisky,  of  meals 
cooked  greasily  by  Mrs.  Ross  in  the  kitchen  across  the 
tiny  hall ;  saw  the  hotly  red  walls,  the  red-brown 
woodwork,  the  jostling,  huddling  wreckage  of  the  big 
pieces  of  furniture,  their  mahogany  or  walnut  surfaces 
sticky  and  dull,  pitted  and  scratched.  She  saw  the 
crimson- tiled  hearth  spattered  with  last  night's  ashes  ; 
and  at  the  table  littered  with  papers,  Patullo  with  his 
face  down  and  the  pistol  in  his  piteous  small  hand  ; 
dead  of  shame  because  another  man  had  been  kind 
to  him. 

"  Oh,  poor  man  !  "  Drusilla  sobbed.  *'  Oh,  poor 
Grace  .  .  .  you  poor  thing." 

"  I  wish  we  hadn't  waited,"  Grace  said.  "  He 
always  kept  on  saying  we  must  wait.  ...  It  was  all 
very  well  for  him  to  say  that :  he  never  wanted  me  so 
much  as  I  did  him.  I  used  to  be  glad  I  loved  him 
more — I'm  not  so  sure  now.  ...  I  wonder  how  it 
could  have  been  worse  for  either  of  us  than  things  as 
they've  been.  I  dare  say  people  have  thought  I'd 
done  wrong  :  I'm  sure  they  have  at  the  club  :  they 
don't  like  me  .  .  .  and,  do  you  know,  Drusilla,  I  was 
in  a  family  as  nursery-governess  at  first  and  they 
wouldn't  keep  me  ?  I'm  sure  now  it  was  that.  .  .  . 
I  wonder  what  good  I  got  by  doing  nothing  wrong. 
Why,  I  mayn't  even  go  and  look  at  his  body  again 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM  295 
if  that  creature  comes  and  chooses  to  deny  me 
the  house.  .  .  .  And  look  what  my  life's  been, 
Dillie." 

"  Oh  .  .  .  '  Drusilla  was  crouched  on  the  fender- 
stool,  her  face  hidden. 

"  It's  broken  me  all  up.  ...  It's  made  me  so 
frightfully  old.  .  .  .  You  don't  know  what  it  means, 
child,  to  be  all  alone  all  your  life — not  to  have  a  single 
person  you  can  speak  to  ...  and  to  see  your  life, 
and  your  youth,  and  any  looks  and  spirits  you  had, 
all  going  away  from  you.  ...  I  cut  myself  off  from 
my  own  people  chiefly  on  his  account,  you  know  : 
I  didn't  want  him  to  know  exactly  what  their  social 
position  was  :  I  was  afraid  he  might  come  to  be 
ashamed  of  me — if  that  creature  died  and  we  got 
married,  you  know.  She  had  something  wrong  with 
her,  you  know  ;  and  that  with  her  habits  .  .  .  Isn't 
it  extraordinary  to  think  that  she's  alive  and  he's 
dead  ?  She  was  younger,  of  course,  but  no  one  would 
ever  have  known  that.  ...  Of  course  I  was  young 
when  I  did  that :  I  didn't  know  how  the  thing  was 
going  to  turn  out.  .  .  .  Then,  when  I  tried  to  see 
something  of  my  people  again,  later,  I  found  they 
shrank  from  me.  It  was  like  that  everywhere.  All 
the  societies  and  classes  and  things  I  joined  I  seemed 
to  get  left.  The  girls  seemed  all  to  get  into  cliques 
and  conspired  to  leave  me  out.  .  .  .  Do  you  know, 
you're  the  only  girl  I  know  who  seemed  to  want  to 
keep  on  seeing  me  ?  ...  If  I'd  lost  my  character 
I  don't  see  how  I  could  have  been  ostracised  more. 
Even  if  a  woman  were  to  be  damned  at  once  for  doing 
that,  how's  it  worse  than  being  damned  by  degrees  ? 
To  go  on  hungering  and  hungering.  .  .  .  He'd  got 
tired  of  me  himself." 


296          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

Miss  Morland  rose,  glancing  at  Drusilla's  wedding- 
gift  clock  in  its  Connemara  marble  case. 

"  I  say,  I  must  be  going.  ...  I  say,  when  does 
your  husband  come  in  ?  ...  Oh  yes,  it's  Sunday 
of  course.  I'm  going  back  to  him.  He  looks  so 
awfully  peaceful,  Dillie  :  you  can  see  what  an  awfully 
delicate,  refined  sort  of  face  he  had  before.  .  .  .  Oh, 
I  hope  that  creature  won't  have  got  the  news  and 
come  to  the  house  !  "  Yet  there  was  a  strain  of 
longing  in  Grace's  voice,  a  horrible  harridan-like 
desire  to  meet  her  enemy  over  the  body  of  the  man 
who  had  been  dear  to  them  both. 

"  Your  mother  was  very  kind,"  Grace  said,  lifting 
the  heavy  bearskin  stole.  "  She  asked  me  to  come  in, 
and  wanted  to  make  me  a  cup  of  tea." 

"  Mother's  always  kind  to  people  in  trouble," 
Dmsilla  said  proudly.  "  Do  go  in  when  you  go  back 
— you'll  be  worn  out,  you  poor  thing."  She  came 
close  to  Grace,  arranging  the  fur  on  her  shoulders, 
clasping  it  at  her  neck  ;  then  drew  down  the  woman's 
head,  kissing  and  stroking  her  face.  The  muscles  of 
Grace's  mouth  worked,  but  the  exhausted  heart  could 
not  overflow  in  a  great  flood  of  emotion  :  its  energies 
had  for  too  long  been  drained  away  in  driblets. 

Love,  with  its  fairy-like  simplicity,  showed  Grace 
Morland  to  Drusilla  as  an  unhappy  woman  who  had 
entered  a  room  and  seen  the  man  she  loved  lying  dead. 
That  was  really  why  Drusilla  pitied  her  and  held  her 
warmly  and  kissed  her.  The  man  was  dead,  and  the 
poor  woman  had  never  given  nor  received  happiness. 
To  come  into  a  room  and  find  the  man  you  loved 
lying  dead  and  to  know  that  you  had  not  made  him 
happy  .  .  . 

Drusilla  moved  to  the  window  and  watched  the 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          297 

slouching  figure  go  swinging  down  the  street.  Here 
and  there  a  trim  Sunday  figure  paused,  half  turned, 
to  gaze  at  the  disordered  dress  and  walk. 

Oh,  she  knew  now  why  Grace  had  come  to  her  ! 
The  egotism  of  her  love  seized  on  this  broken  wasted 
life  as  material  for  its  own  uses.  It  cried  out  that  the 
ugly  tale  had  been  told  as  a  warning,  bidding  her  no 
longer  hesitate.  There  was  time  yet — time  for  rescue, 
time  for  joy,  time  for  her  happiness  and  Michael's. 
What  matter  if  Love's  path  led  her  into  a  strange  wild 
lawless  country  wherein  the  desires  of  gods  seemed 
earthly  as  the  desires  of  men  ?  The  road  of  respect- 
ability, with  its  lying  sign-posts,  was  cluttered  with 
shameful  ruins.  There  was  no  real  failure  anywhere, 
except  the  loss  of  Love  :  there  was  no  sin  save  the 
evil  dream  of  a  life  without  Love. 

Drusilla  went  to  the  writing-table  and  wrote  to 
Michael : 

"  Dearest  Mick, — I  will  come  with  you  whenever 
you  tell  me. 

"  DRUSILLA." 

She  went  to  her  new  wardrobe  and  put  on  one  of 
her  dainty  coats  and  big  hats.  She  smiled  at  her 
reflection  in  the  glass.  Not  Mrs.  Cowie,  but  Drusilla 
who  had  awakened  :  she  had  never  really  been  Cowie' s 
wife.  In  the  sunny  awakening  the  dream  showed 
smoke-like,  grotesque,  frail,  a  thing  without  grief  or 
terror.  Nothing  in  her  life  had  ever  been  real  except 
Michael.  Nothing  anywhere  was  real,  or  worthy  of 
serious  consideration,  except  Love. 

She  went  down  the  bright  street  and  dropped  the 
letter  into  a  pillar-box. 


298          THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 


A  scaffolding  reared  above  The  Corner  House  showed 
where  the  rose-coloured  room  was  being  built.  Around, 
the  trees,  afire  with  greens,  thrilled  and  rang  all  day 
with  the  bridal  songs  of  birds. 

Michael  Quentin  was  coming  and  going  among 
filings  of  wood  and  stones  and  sand  and  groups  of 
workmen  ;  as  Alick  Cowie  had  come  and  gone  nearly 
a  year  ago. 

Of  course  there  were  differences.  .  .  .  Cowie, 
blushing  and  with  a  quickened  breath,  used  to  dash 
up,  at  odd  hours  of  leisure,  to  seize  a  sight  of  the 
development  of  a  tiny  flat,  a  mere  mouse-hole  in  a 
tall  tenement ;  or  to  snatch  at  an  interview  with  a 
coy  agent,  very  much  on  the  defensive. 

Michael,  during  most  of  the  hours  of  work,  was 
within  call  of  the  builders  :  they  deferred,  in  a  certain 
measure,  to  his  wishes — though  they  did  this  less  than 
any  one  who  had  not  five  thousand  a  year  might  have 
supposed.  It  was  not  a  little  white  flat  that  Michael 
was  waiting  to  see,  but  a  rose-coloured  room,  a  fit 
habitation  for  a  Maeterlinck  princess. 

There  were  other  differences,  of  course,  than  the 
mere  financial  one  of  Michael's  five  thousand  and 
Cowie's  four  hundred.  Michael  .  .  .  felt  differently 
from  Cowie.  .  .  .  Yes  :  his  feelings  were  different 
from  Cowie's. 

He  was  going  to  have  a  rose-garden  made  around 
the  long  room  which  was  built  at  an  end  of  the  house, 
behind  and  at  right  angles  to  the  violet  guest-chamber. 
There  was  to  be  a  lawn  in  the  centre  of  the  garden, 
flanked  with  rose-alleys,  the  whole  enclosed  by  trees. 
Drusilla  and  he  would  hardly  need  to  go  beyond  the 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM          299 

confines  of  his  twenty  acres  :  he  was  going  to  have  it 
all  made  so  beautiful,  so  full  of  delights.  He  was 
having  a  tennis-court  made  and  a  croquet-lawn  :  he 
was  going  to  buy  a  steam-yacht,  as  Drusilla  had  said 
that  she  was  afraid  of  the  slippery  white  kind.  They 
could  go  long  cruises  ;  and  they  would  have  long  runs 
in  the  motor  to  woods  and  hills  and  rivers  and  towns 
and  cities — to  all  the  fair  places  that  Nature  or  man 
had  made  and  that  Drusilla  had  not  seen.  .  .  .  She 
had  said  with  her  woebegone  air,  beset  by  fears,  that 
she  wished  that  the  conditions  of  his  mother's  will 
did  not  compel  them  to  spend  the  greater  part  of  the 
year  in  Scotland. 

"  Because  of  people  .  .  ."  Drusilla  faltered. 

But  wait  till  she  saw  !  Michael  made  her  realise, 
in  some  measure,  how  a  command  over  material  things 
enabled  people  to  live  almost  independently  of  their 
neighbours'  opinions.  Let  her  picture  twenty  acres 
of  woodland,  of  garden  and  seashore,  and  every  foot 
of  it  made  fair  for  the  treading  of  her  feet.  He  was 
glad  of  his  money.  Money  could  build  a  fairy  palace 
for  Love's  abiding  and  circle  it  round  with  barriers 
that  shut  out  the  censuring,  staring  world  ;  even  with 
barriers  that  shut  out  the  world's  reason  and  righteous- 
ness, its  faith,  its  pity. 

Coming  .  .  .  coming  ;  and  all  the  universe  seemed 
to  thrill  and  throb  like  a  great  monster,  aeon-slum- 
bered, moving  to  the  impulse  of  its  awakening.  She 
was  coming,  and  the  ground  had  known  it  long  ago. 
The  trees  and  the  earth  were  breaking  into  joy-fires 
of  pure  green  flame.  All  the  years  of  their  growing 
had  been  just  for  this  one  spring.  All  the  griefs  and 
bewilderments  of  Michael's  soul,  his  seemingly  sense- 
less birth  and  upbringing,  his  struggles  to  understand 


300          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

God  and  to  help  men,  had  been  lived  through  so  that 
he  might  stand  with  her  here,  under  the  trees,  on  the 
grass  snowed  with  Bethlehem  stars  and  lighted  with 
celandines. 

And  all  of  The  Corner  House  had  been  conceived 
and  built  so  that  that  rose-coloured  room  might  be 
added.  Rollo  had  known  that. 

As  Michael  wandered  about,  returning  every  now 
and  then  within  sight  of  the  builders,  he  constantly 
imagined  Rollo  by  his  side  ;  so  vividly  present  some- 
times that  (it  seemed)  a  swift  wheeling  movement 
must  surprise  his  visible  form  and  compel  it  to  stay. 
It  had  not  been  possible  to  explain,  to  the  solemn-eyed 
architect  who  had  complimented  him  on  his  clear 
conception  and  description  of  the  rose-coloured  room, 
that  the  thing  was  not  his  own,  but  Rollo's.  The 
architect  had  not  the  air  of  a  man  who  believed  in 
communications  "  from  the  other  side." 

But  Rollo  had  planned  the  room  long  ago  (Michael 
knew)  and  had  kept  his  idea  ready ;  foreboding 
that  a  day  would  come  when  all  Michael  Quentin's 
patriotism,  all  his  faith,  all  his  altruism,  would  be 
sucked  into  the  fathomless  whirlpool  of  a  man's  desire 
for  a  maiden  ;  when  his  immense  dream  of  the  design 
of  the  universe — ring  on  ring  of  rejoicing  stars  peopled 
by  acclaiming  hosts  of  men  and  angels  converging 
towards  a  Central  Source  of  Light — had  shrunk  to  a 
dream  of  the  warm  perishing  petals  and  the  myste- 
rious bright  heart  of  one  little  rose. 

Rollo  had  known  that  she  was  coming ;  and  now 
it  pleased  Michael  to  fancy  that  Rollo  stood  by  his 
side  watching  the  builders,  wandered  with  him  under 
the  bird-thrilling  trees  or  along  the  shore ;  entered 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          801 

the  house  with  him  and  sat  with  him  at  table,  hearing 
without  the  voices  of  the  workmen,  the  clinks  and 
rattlings  and  blows  that  told  of  the  gradual  materiali- 
sation of  the  rose-coloured  dream.  .  .  .  Once  Michael 
let  his  fancy  play  with  the  thought  that  Rollo  was 
mounting  the  stair  to  the  white  studio ;  and  he  rose 
and  followed  the  phantom. 

The  roses  under  the  rood  had  fallen  to  pieces  and 
lay,  a  heap  of  purple  and  pallid  petals.  Michael  stood 
staring  at  the  figure  on  the  cross — the  symbol  of  his 
father's  faith  of  humility  and  self-sacrifice  ;  his  own 
wildly  accepted  symbol  of  altruism.  He  remembered 
how  he  had  prayed,  agonisedly,  that,  in  this  struggle 
beyond  his  strength,  help  might  be  sent  from  the 
other  side. 

How  glad  he  was  now  that  no  help  had  come  ! 


VI 

Michael  was  going  to  take  Brasilia  to  Ireland  for 
the  summer,  then  to  return  to  The  Corner  House. 
They  had  arranged  to  meet  quietly  at  St.  Enoch's 
station  at  eleven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  twenty- 
fifth  of  April.  Cowie  went  to  his  consulting-rooms  in 
Barrowman's  shop  at  ten. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  Michael  came  up  to  Mrs. 
Wylie's.  He  had  intended  to  spend  the  evening  with 
Racie  Moore,  hoping,  in  his  self-conscious  way,  that 
the  memory  of  it  would  stay  with  Racie,  softening 
him  towards  his  friend.  Michael  had  even  a  fantastic 
thought  of  telling  Racie  his  purpose. 

"  Faith,  it  would  astonish  him,"  Michael  thought, 
smiling :  he  enjoyed  using  the  expletive  "  Faith," 
to  which  Racie  was  inclined  to  deny  his  right. 


302          THE   ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

But  his  own  smile  made  him  realise  that  it  would 
not  be  possible  to  speak  of  this  thing  to  Racie  save 
with  a  hideous  pretence  of  lightness.  It  was  because 
it  was  to  be  done  earnestly,  with  a  passion  of  delight, 
that  it  would  seem  abhorrent  in  Racie's  eyes. 

Michael  found  that  he  could  not  spend  the  evening 
with  his  friend  :  his  heart  turned  from  the  hypocrisy 
that  it  must  be.  He  could  not  talk  to  Mrs.  Wylie, 
nor  bear  her  presence  in  the  room  as  she  lingered  to 
give  him  some  particulars  regarding  the  gathering  of 
the  beech  and  pine  nuts  with  which  her  son  Richard 
covered  frames.  Richard,  it  appeared,  was  thinking 
of  showing  something  at  the  Edinburgh  Industrial 
Exhibition. 

"  Oh,  indeed.  Certainly.  Indeed  he  should," 
Michael  said.  He  wanted  to  be  nice  to  Mrs.  Wylie  : 
there  was  a  quick  pang  of  heart-sickness  in  the  thought 
that  she  might  refuse  to  have  him  staying  with  her 
again,  no  matter  how  much  he  paid.  .  .  .  Still,  she 
had  often  spoken  of  how  she  depended  on  his  money, 
and  everything  might  be  made  right. 

It  was  a  pale  blue  evening,  dry  and  dusty,  and 
Michael  went  out  and  wandered  about  the  streets, 
wishing  that  the  light  would  go.  Coming  back,  he 
lay  down  in  an  arm-chair  and  tried  to  read.  He  had 
bought  some  cigarettes  and  he  smoked  two  with  a 
sense  of  adventure  :  but  they  disappointed  him  by  a 
curious  insipidity,  nor  did  they  produce  the  dreamy 
feelings  that  he  remembered  long  ago. 

Mrs.  Wylie  brought  supper. 

"  I  know  you've  given  up  wine,  Mr.  Quentin,  ever 
since  you  were  abroad  with  poor  old  Mr.  Patullo. 
But  Richard  got  this  bottle  specially  from  a  friend 
that's  in  Parrott's,  the  wine-merchants.  A  glass  of 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM          303 

it'll  do  you  good  :  you're  looking  tired.  We  mustn't 
be  too  hard  on  the  creature  comforts,"  Mrs.  Wylie 
went  on  with  her  discreet  smile.  "  There's  Bible  for 
it,  you  know — Paul  and  Timothy,  you  know,  Mr. 
Quentin." 

"  Sure,  that  was  for  his  stomach's  sake,"  Michael 
said,  laughing.  ..."  Perhaps  it's  just  my  heart 
that's  bothering  me." 

"  Ah,  it's  often  the  stomach  when  people  think  it's 
the  heart,"  Mrs.  Wylie  said.  Then,  realising  that  a 
gentleman-lodger  had  jested  without  the  decency  of 
encouragement,  she  added  humorously  :  "  Is  that  so, 
indeed,  Mr.  Quentin  ?  We're  all  waiting  to  hear 
something  of  the  kind." 

Michael  ate  and  drank  ;  and  the  wine,  to  which  he 
had  grown  unaccustomed,  brought  a  pleasant  blurring 
of  his  thoughts.  As  he  lay  down  he  was  able  to  hope 
that  Racie  might  .  .  .  might  .  .  .  The  truth  was, 
it  was  not  possible  to  imagine  the  thing  that  Racie 
might  do  :  but  Michael  hoped  that  it  might  be  some- 
thing not  hostile,  perhaps  not  even  wholly  un- 
sympathetic. 

As  he  fell  asleep  it  occurred  to  him  that  Alex- 
ander Cowie  might  fall  in  love  with  some  other 
girl. 

Michael  awoke  very  early  and  bathed  and  dressed 
in  water  and  air  of  a  startling  coldness.  Exulting  in 
the  pure  chill,  the  contest  between  his  running  blood 
and  the  unsunned  air,  he  stood  at  his  bedroom  window 
to  watch  the  dawn-light  which  was  reflected  in  lowered 
tones  in  the  mirror  above  the  chimney-piece.  He 
smiled  as  the  brightness  caught  the  varnished  cones, 
the  little  rollers  of  fir-wood  with  their  edentated  bark, 
on  Richard's  photograph-frames.  Michael  wondered 


304          THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM 

if  some  not  yet  dead  sap  thrilled  within  them,  remem- 
bering how  dawn  came  to  the  woods. 

The  stacks  and  heaps  in  the  wood-yard  seemed  a 
great  mass  of  fruity  brown-purple,  solemnly  sombre  ; 
and  radiance  welled  out  from  behind  it,  mounting 
higher  and  higher,  growing  more  intense.  Not  a  rosy 
radiance,  but  a  clear  amber  that  keyed  up  to  a  gold- 
white,  stainless  and  searching.  The  blocks  of  the 
buildings  and  the  fine  lines  of  chimneys  showed  blue- 
black,  and  the  silent  pavements  shone.  ...  A  fair 
day  was  coming — surely  the  fairest  that  man  ever 
awaited  or  gods  conceived. 

"  But  a  little  cold,"  Michael  thought,  smiling.  He 
would  shut  the  window. 

He  was  weak  with  cold.  An  abominable  sense  of 
weakness  was  gripping  him.  "  I've  been  overdoing 
it,"  he  thought.  "  Getting  myself  run  down  with  all 
that  praying  and  lying  awake  and  so  on.  .  .  .  And 
those  stimulants  last  night — I've  got  out  of  the  way 
of  them.  They  really  lower  the  vitality  finally  though 
for  the  time  they  give  energy.  ..." 

He  was  amused  by  the  resemblance  that  this  bore 
to  a  Food  Reform  pamphlet.  He  would  shut  the 
window  and  make  some  coffee.  He  jumped  on  a 
chair  and  stood  for  a  minute  glorying  in  the  flood  of 
light  that  streamed  down  on  him.  .  .  .  The  old- 
fashioned  sash  was  stiff  and  he  strove  to  push  it 
upwards.  .  .  . 

Then,  sudden,  blundering,  compassionate,  belated, 
help  came  from  the  other  side. 

Michael  climbed  down  from  the  chair  and,  wavering, 
sank  on  his  knees  beside  it. 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          305 

VII 

Brasilia  had  seen  all  her  flat  set  in  order,  and 
explained  to  the  maid  that  she  might  not  get  back 
from  town  in  time  for  early  dinner.  She  had  a  desire, 
which  (she  knew)  was  purely  sentimental  in  the  midst 
of  her  ruthlessness,  that  Alick  should  eat  this  one 
dinner  happily. 

She  left  the  house,  carrying  a  hand-bag.  She  still 
wore  her  wedding-ring,  her  engagement-ring,  and  the 
curb  bracelet  that  Cowie  had  given.  She  had  decided 
that  she  must  not  send  these  things  back  to  him 
when  she  wrote  to  him.  It  would  have  been  a  cruel, 
vulgar  act,  such  as  women  were  guilty  of  in  novels 
and  dramas.  She  did  not  want  to  be  vulgar  and 
cruel. 

She  passed  the  Frenchwoman's  bassinet  in  the  close 
where,  on  fine  days,  it  generally  stood  till  evening. 
On  the  top  of  its  cosiness  there  was  a  blanket  which 
Brasilia  herself  had  embroidered  as  a  neighbourly 
gift.  She  looked  at  it,  and  at  the  other  familiar 
objects  that  she  passed,  in  the  hurried,  involuntary 
fashion  of  a  woman  who  is  going  for  a  boat  or  a  train 
and  whose  mind  is  full  of  little  resolves  under  which, 
perhaps,  pulse  sorrows  and  regrets. 

She  walked  all  the  way  to  the  station,  moving 
swiftly  and  steadily,  swinging  her  hand-bag,  a  fine 
colour  in  her  cheeks.  As  she  entered  the  station, 
gazing  up  at  the  clock,  people  looked  at  her  and 
turned  their  heads  to  look  again. 

She  was  early,  and  she  went  to  the  bookstall  and 
stood  looking  at  the  paper  covers  displayed  ;  moving 
quickly  away  from  any  one  who  came  to  stand  near 
her,  and  starting  at  the  sight  of  every  figure  that 

u 


306          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

resembled  any  acquaintance.  She  told  herself  that, 
to-morrow,  she  would  be  done  for  ever  with  fears  of 
people's  doings  and  sayings.  But  to-day  the  door  of 
her  soul's  prison-house  had  just  clanged  behind  her 
and  she  was  still  in  the  shadow  of  it  and  quivering 
with  the  sound. 

The  hands  of  the  clock  moved  to  mark  eleven. 
She  was  still  searching  the  crowds  for  Michael's  figure 
with  the  excited  walk,  the  coat  flying  open,  the 
ridiculous  hair,  the  eager  face.  None  of  the  men  she 
saw  coming  and  going — not  one  of  the  men  and 
women  that  she  had  been  seeing  all  her  life — had  a 
beautiful  face  like  Michael's.  They  were  all  dis- 
coloured by  unwholesome  habits,  seared  and  furrowed 
by  ignoble  cares,  beaten  into  patience  by  submission 
to  laws.  Only  Michael  had  dared  to  snap  the  chains 
— so  grotesquely  brittle — that  bound  her  soul  and 
his  ;  to  carry  her  off  to  Love's  wild  lawless  country 
where  there  was  no  duty,  only  delight.  What  wonder 
that  she  and  Michael  shone,  beautiful  and  young,  in 
a  crowd  of  the  mean  and  the  weary  ? 

Michael  did  not  come,  and  the  radiance  of  her  mood 
was  dulled.  .  .  .  Then  fear  came.  What  had  hap- 
pened ?  Suddenly  she  knew  that  the  world,  enraged 
at  the  exposure  of  its  own  stupidity,  was  her  enemy 
and  Michael's.  The  stupid,  false  world  was  ready  to 
fight  with  violence  against  people  who  did  what  she 
and  Michael  were  doing. 

She  waited  till  a  quarter  to  twelve  :  pacing  to  and 
fro,  gradually  less  regardful  of  glances.  Then,  chilled, 
almost  terrified,  with  a  face  that  had  fallen  into 
lines  of  fatigue  and  despondency,  she  went  out 
of  the  station,  hailed  a  cab  and  was  driven  to  Mrs. 
Wylie's. 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          307 

VIII 

"  Oh,  miss  ..."  Mrs.  Wylie  said.  "  Oh,  miss.  .  .  . 
I'd  knocked  twice  to  tell  Mr.  Quentin  breakfast  was 
ready,  and  never  got  an  answer ;  so  thinking  to 
myself  there  was  something  wrong,  I  took  the  freedom 
of  opening  the  door,  and  there  was  the  poor  young 
gentleman  kneeling  by  the  chair  with  the  sun  pouring 
down  on  his  head.  I  did  everything  I  could  ...  we 
sent  over  the  road  at  once  for  Dr.  Gateley ;  and  he 
said  it  was  ...  no  use.  Oh,  miss  .  .  .  I'd  sent 
down  to  the  works  for  Richard  and  Jim  :  Richard's 
crying  like  a  child  in  the  kitchen  now.  And  we've 
sent  to  look  for  Mr.  Moore  at  The  Mercury — he  wasn't 
to  be  found  in  his  rooms.  Oh,  miss.  ...  The  doctor 
and  I  lifted  the  poor  young  gentleman  on  to  the  bed. 
The  doctor  says  it  was  heart  failure  and  no  pain — 
and  that's  a  thing  to  be  thankful  for,  and  plain  enough 
from  the  look  of  him.  He's  got  the  smile  of  an  angel. 
He  was  always  such  a  good,  nice-behaved  young 
gentleman,  Mr.  Quentin." 

Mrs.  Wylie  suddenly  sank  into  silence,  and  went 
away,  pale  and  compassionate,  as  she  saw  Drusilla 
turn  towards  Michael's  door.  Drusilla  had  not 
spoken  her  name  ;  and  the  landlady's  thought  leaped 
to  the  essential  part  of  the  truth. 

Drusilla  opened  the  door.  Unhappy  woman  who, 
entering  a  room,  found  the  man  she  loved  lying 
dead  !  .  .  . 

She  sat  down  by  the  bed  and  watched  Michael. 
Oh,  happy  woman  who  could  sit  so,  alone  with  him, 
in  the  silence  !  Happy  woman  who  knew  that  she 
had  made  him  happy,  that  he  had  died  full  of  joy 
of  her  creating  !  She  wished  that  she  had  gone  a  day 


308          THE  ROSE-COLOURED  ROOM 

earlier,  so  that,  if  this  were  inevitably  the  day  of 
Michael's  death,  he  might  have  died  in  her  arms. 

A  ring  resounded  through  the  quiet  house,  there 
were  hushed  footsteps  and  voices.  Mrs.  Wylie  tapped. 

"  Mr.  Moore's  come,  ma'am — he's  in  the  dining- 
room.  He  says,  may  he  see  you  ?  " 

Drusilla  rose,  trembling.  The  landlady  had  altered 
her  "  miss  "  to  "  ma'am."  What  had  Racie  Moore 
said  to  her  ?  It  was  as  if  the  conventions  of  the 
world  came  close  to  her  again,  clutching  at  her  throat. 

Racie  was  standing  in  the  dining-room ;  terribly 
pale,  neat  in  his  light  overcoat,  his  crush  hat  under 
his  arm.  He  faced  her,  with  eyes  full  of  hostility  to 
this  woman  who  had  lured  Michael  Quentin  down  to 
the  level  of  other  men. 

"  I  was  to  meet  him  at  the  station,"  Drusilla  said. 
"  We  were  going  away.  He  didn't  come,  so  I  came 
here." 

Racie  walked  to  the  window  and  stood,  his  profile 
towards  her. 

"  You'd  better  go  back,"  he  said  in  his  quiet  voice. 
"  I'll  call  a  cab  for  you.  .  .  .  You'd  better  go  home." 
What  had  she  been  able  to  do  ?  What  was  the  use 
of  blaming  her  ?  His  rage  of  jealousy,  seeking  the 
relief  of  contempt,  said  that  she  was  only  a  bundle  of 
"  feminine  charms." 

"  You'd  better  go  home,"  he  repeated  in  his  cold, 
dry,  throaty  voice. 

He  called  a  cab.  Drusilla  looked  from  its  windows 
at  the  sunny  coloured  city,  full  of  spring  flowers,  of 
fresh  paint  and  gilding,  of  the  frivolous  strife  of  bread- 
winning  and  pleasure-seeking,  of  meetings  and  part- 
ings. She  wondered  if  God  had  sent  an  angel 
down  with  a  flaming  sword  to  save  her  from  destruc- 


THE  ROSE-COLOURED   ROOM          309 

tion.  ...   Or  had  her  feet  taken  a  firmer  hold  of 
Hell? 

She  got  down  at  Fifteen  Ainslie  Street.  Odours  of 
cooking  came  from  the  tenement :  baby-carriages 
were  being  wheeled  to  and  fro.  As  Drusilla  stood  on 
the  steps,  feeling  in  her  purse  for  silver  for  the  cabman, 
the  sunlight  fell  about  her  "  tenderly  as  about  a 
helpless  thing." 


A     000  046  236     6 


